May I extend my very warm welcome to all the participants of the First Regional Meeting of National Authorities of States Parties in Africa. Support to national implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) is a special and high- priority responsibility of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The OPCW can only function effectively, and the objectives of the Convention can only be met fully, if the Convention is implemented properly and comprehensively at the national level. To achieve this crucial goal, the Organisation relies on you, the people whose direct and heavy responsibility it is to ensure that each of your respective countries complies fully with its obligations under the CWC and that, while fulfilling its obligations, each country also fully utilises the benefits of membership in the Organisation.
The obligations and benefits of membership are not alternatives. They are two sides of the same coin. They need to be mutually reinforcing, if the CWC is to be implemented effectively and to achieve its full purpose. We would like to achieve this goal as soon as possible.
The qualitative dimension of the CWC, as reflected in the state of national implementation, leaves considerable scope for improvement. This fact led the recent Review Conference in The Hague to reconfirm support to national implementation and the universality of the CWC as priority areas for the OPCW. This will require a concerted, focused and sustained effort by the Technical Secretariat and Member States.
The regional meetings of National Authorities serve the important purpose of assisting Member States to gain more knowledge and experience in carrying out their Convention-related tasks. These meetings also form part of the broader implementation support programme of the Organisation, aimed at contributing to greater self-sufficiency of national implementation efforts, including at the regional level.
The establishment of a regional network to promote the object and purpose of the Convention in Africa, as well as the importance of sustained technical assistance from the OPCW and capacity building for States Parties in Africa were the two important recommendations of the workshop, which took place here in Khartoum a year ago.
This First Regional Meeting of National Authorities of States Parties in Africa is the OPCW’s response to this call. Our engagement with Africa, which started a long time before the CWC entered into force, is now receiving a new quality and dimension, commensurate with the importance that this continent plays for the object and purpose of the CWC and with the magnitude of practical implementation issues facing your countries. This effort also goes along with the steps taken towards improving the universality of the Convention in Africa – another important objective recognised at the meeting in Khartoum last year.
The issue of universality is central to the very essence of the Convention and it impacts directly on the latter’s credibility and future. Substantial progress has been made on this issue since entry into force of the Convention in April 1997. The Organisation has moved from 87 Member States at that time to 153 currently. Globally, there remain 41 States not party to the Convention, including 25 signatory states and 16 non-signatory states.
Although we have made substantive progress globally, in Africa we have not seen here any movement towards ratification and accession since Uganda and Zambia both ratified in 2001. The fact that one third of Africa still stands outside the scope of the Convention and that the process of national implementation in many of the African Member States is slow is a matter of concern to both the Technical Secretariat and Member States.
I made this concern clear in my meetings during the Summit of the African Union in Maputo last month. I met with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Chad, H.E. Mr Nagoum Yamassoum, who promised to look rapidly into the situation of his country’s accession as a matter of urgency. We also met with the Ambassador of Libya to Addis Ababa and with Mr Pereira who is here among us today, in order to speed up Libya’s ratification.
I am pleased to note that today we have among us representatives of three States not party to the Convention, namely Chad, Libya and Sao Tome and Principe I would like to express the hope that their participation in this meeting of National Authorities will help to facilitate an early finalisation of their countries’ internal preparations and procedures for joining the Convention.
We also would like to engage key regional organisations. Thus, I intend to visit the Commission of the African Union later this year, in order to further strengthen our cooperation in this regard. I also intend to address the Permanent Representatives Committee of the African Union in order to sensitise this important body on this important issue. This will be done jointly with the Commission of the African Union with whom we have already started relevant discussions.
The effective implementation of the Chemical Weapons Convention can only be achieved if a number of core activities under the Convention receive full attention of the Organisation and of its individual members. These core activities include verified chemical disarmament and non-proliferation, assistance and protection against chemical weapons, international cooperation in the peaceful uses of chemistry and chemical technologies, and implementation support.
All of these priority areas are standard features of various outreach events organised by the Technical Secretariat, which many of you have attended. Without prejudice to such important areas as international cooperation and assistance and protection, where the rights and obligations of Member States are intertwined and crucial to the success of the Convention, the focus of this regional meeting of National Authorities is the requirements in the areas of legislation and industry declarations and inspections. These are two key activities where the non-proliferation of chemical weapons can be assured through effective national implementation. These are the two areas, which will receive most of your attention during the next three days of the meeting.
The practical objective of the meeting is therefore to lay the foundation for the regional implementation network called for by African countries. I would like to recommend that you use your presence and time in Khartoum to engage among yourselves in an exchange of professional experiences, problems, lessons learnt, obstacles overcome and to establish personal contacts and to reinforce professional links already established, which I am sure will prove to be useful in facilitating smooth working relations among African Member States in the area of national implementation of the CWC.
Some of you have expressed interest to meet Technical Secretariat officials and to discuss issues of bilateral nature between your National Authorities and the Secretariat. I am pleased that we are able to maximise in this manner the use of the resources for implementation support given to us by your governments.
I cannot finish with my statement without expressing the sincere gratitude of the OPCW and of my own to the Government of Sudan for offering to host in Khartoum this first meeting of National Authorities in Africa, thus bringing to a real start the process envisioned also here in Khartoum in March last year during the workshop on the Chemical Weapons Convention. The support of the Government of Sudan was also instrumental in Durban during last year’s first African Union summit, in facilitating the decision of the AU Council of Ministers on the implementation and universality of the CWC.
I would also like to mention the support of the Permanent Representative of Sudan in The Hague, Ambassador Babu Fatih, who helped to move the process forward in Africa in an eloquent way. We are now again in the good hands of our Sudanese hosts, and I am confident that their hospitality will be conducive to achieving tangible results during this meeting as well.
Let me therefore declare the First Regional Meeting of National Authorities of States Parties in Africa open and wish you all the success in fulfilling the objectives of this important encounter.