President Kufuor in Algeria ....

...rallies support for common Pan African Fund
Algiers, March 21, GNA - African Uion Chairman President John Agyekum Kufuor has called on his colleague African leaders to back the setting up of a common Pan African Fund for infrastructure development on the continent.

The Fund would help to provide seed money and counterpart funds to attract credit lines from development partners for implementation of specific projects.

President Kufuor said this initiative, a brain-child of South Africa, which proposes using a portion of pension funds from AU member countries for the purpose, could be developed within the ambit of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD).

He was addressing a day's summit to brainstorm on the integration of NEPAD into the AU structure held in the Algerian Capital, Algiers, on Wednesday.

Algerian President Abdulaziz Bouteflika, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Nigerian President Oulsegun Obasanjo, Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi and Mr Alpha Omar Konare, President of the AU Commission, were among those who attended.

NEPAD, represents a new development vision for Africa's renewal by creating conditions for sustainable progress through peace and security, democracy, good political, economic and corporate governance. Its key priority action areas include ensuring that the African Peer Review Mechanism becomes functional, supporting the implementation of regional infrastructure programmes like transport, energy, water and sanitation, and Information, Communication Technology (ICT).

Additionally, it is also to facilitate the preparation of a coordinated African position on market access, debt relief and Overseas Development Assistance.

President Kufuor said it was time concrete steps were taken to create the necessary synergy to incorporate the NEPAD, which already had been acknowledged by the development partners such as the Group of Eight Industrialised countries (G-8) into the AU structure for maximun benefits and avoid the danger of the two developing parallel strategic plans.

He noted that NEPAD has chalked some successes, citing, it's attraction of projects, including the Global Fund to fight AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, the e-Schools pilot project in 16 countries, including Ghana, Uganda, Losotho and Kenya and the roll out of the Comprehensive African Agricultural Development Programme (CCAD) under which, the school feeding programme was being implemented.

President Kufuor said it was on the basis of this that; "We must all muster the necessary political will to take bold and decisive actions in our quest to harmonise our strategies, programmes and projects for promoting development objectives of the continent." He said the NEPAD should be used during the forthcoming AU-G8, and the AU-European Union (EU) summits to identify a few well-studied projects to invite those partners to buy into.

"Success in this will make the critical difference we want African and indeed the entire world to see as what AU with its NEPAD is all about", he added