Regional integration, panacea to poverty and disease in Africa

Accra, Aug. 3, GNA- The 37th meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, Africa Region, underway in Accra has, underscored regional integration to harness both human and material resources to fight poverty and disease.

"All African countries must resolve to integrate now to solve the multiple problems of poverty and disease in our dear Continent or continue to remain in poverty", Ghana, the host country of the Conference, said in a motion.

Dr Francis Osafo Mensah, Member of Parliament for Mpraeso, in motion on Ghana's position on: "Regional Integration and Wealth Creation and-The Way Forward in Poverty Reduction and Control of HIV/AIDS in Africa", said the Parliament of Ghana believed Africa must choose between wealth creation and poverty.

He said Ghana's Parliament would support any legislation that sought to reduce poverty, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases but added that a politically united Africa offered the best solution to problems confronting the Continent.

Ghana noted that the deadly combination of extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS on the African Continent had created particularly alarming situations, with HIV/AIDS claiming more lives than wars and armed conflicts combined.

It is estimated that by the close of the 1990s an estimated 200,000 Africans had died from war, while 2.2 million Africans died from AIDS. Approximately 29.4 million adults and children in Africa live with HIV/AIDS; and each day an estimated 5,500 AIDS deaths and 11,000 new infections occurred. In some African countries the infection rate had risen beyond 30 per cent.

The unprecedented scale of loss of human lives on the Continent is gradually changing the social, economic and political structure of African countries in ways unforeseen in the past.

Dr Osafo-Mensah said both internal and external solutions applied had not worked well either due to the lack of political commitment; adequate financial and human resources and outright unsuitability for the conditions of Africa or external interference.

He called for a zealous tackling of key problems as civil wars, bad governance, political corruption and unfair and inequitable international trading system, in addition to serious commitment to the political integration of Africa.

Seconding the motion, Mr Hood Katurami, Legislator from Uganda, extolled the benefits of integration and said the problem that Africa faced in the prevention and control of HIV/AIDS was not the formulation of strategies but rather their implementation

He said there should be in place mechanisms to monitor and report on the implementation of the various declarations relating to the control of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Mr Katurami said wealth creation and the fight against poverty and HIV/AIDS would not succeed unless the challenges of the marginalized groups were addressed.

"There is hope that integration will provide avenues that have never existed before in promoting the cause for welfare and resolving national strategic challenges", Mr Katurami said.

Meanwhile, the Conference has unanimously elected Mr Ebenezer Begyina Sekyi-Hughes as the Chairman of the CPA Africa Region for a one-year term.

His Vice is Mr Mninwa Johannes Mahlangu, Chairperson of the National Council of Provinces of South Africa, with his election South Africa would host next year's 38th CPA Africa Region Conference.