Ghana, Nigeria, Benin, Togo to fight mass poverty

Accra, May 8, GNA - An alliance by Ghana, Nigeria, Togo and Benin to fight mass poverty through socio-economic development opened in Accra on Thursday with a call on participants to ensure peaceful co-existence and sharing of prosperity on the basis of a joint platform.

Known as the Co-Prosperity Alliance Zone (COPAZ) the four countries aim at providing the most effective framework to address successfully the challenges of mass poverty through socio-economic development.

Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Charles Brempong-Yeboah who opened the conference, said there was the need to critically examine the priority areas and deliberate candidly on issues, while focusing on the aspirations of leaders of the participating countries.

The deputy Minister told the Third Experts of Co-Prosperity Alliance Zone (COPAZ) Ministerial Conference that, it was in recognition of this objective that leaders of member countries agreed to speed up the integration process within the sub-region by establishing a concrete, meaningful and strong project-based foundation.

Notable among the projects are electricity inter-connection among countries and the West Africa Gas Pipeline Project which was launched at Itoki in Ogun state of Nigeria.

Mr. Brempong-Yeboah said participants had been working assiduously to finalise the protocol to the memorandum of understanding on COPAZ which was key for the establishment of the Technical Support Facility to be presented to leaders of member countries on May 10 for consideration and adoption.

The protocol to the memorandum of understanding on the COPAZ provides a comprehensive framework for political, economic and social collaboration between the countries.

In that regard, he said, COPAZ had considered it feasible to focus, among others, on foreign policies, interior and security, finance and development, education, commerce and industry, transport and communication.

Mr. Brempong-Yeboah said the alliance had therefore become more imperative in the era of globalisation to harmonise policies and strengthen cooperation so as to empower the masses by investing in their capabilities and widen their development options, adding that there was much to be gained in pooling resources.

He urged participants to navigate the road map for sustainable establishment of COPAZ to accelerate the economic development of the sub-region. The Executive Secretary of COPAZ, Dr Prince Fatai Adeyemi called for

fruitful deliberations above nationalistic differences and called for

resources and logistics to establish a secretariat for the smooth running

of the alliance.