Africa Day is celebrated every year on the anniversary of the Organization of African Unity’s (OAU) constitution on 25 May 1963. The new African Union (AU) was officially launched in Durban, South Africa in July 2002. The AU promotes the socio-economic development, security and disarmament in the region with the cooperation from the AU Member States. The historic constitutive Conference in Durban also adopted the Decision on the Implementation and Universality of the Chemical Weapons Convention (AHG/Dec. 181 (XXXVIII)), welcoming the effective implementation of the Convention in Africa and encouraging its universality in Africa.
To extend its support and to underscore its commitment to the goal of full and effective implementation of the Convention in Africa, the Director-General of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Ambassador Rogelio Pfirter, has attended the African Union’s Summit in July 2003, held in Maputo, Mozambique and the Third Ordinary Session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the African Union held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in July 2004. The Director-General will be visiting Libya on the occasion of the AU Summit in July 2005.
Since July 2002, seven African States have joined the OPCW: (in chronological order) Sao Tomé and Principe, Cape Verde, Libya, Chad, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Madagascar. The OPCW now includes 43 African States.
The OPCW promotes actively the Convention’s effective national implementation by providing practical, technical support to African National Authorities through regular regional meetings and sustained technical assistance to States Parties in Africa, now seeking to enhance their capacity to ensure that the Convention goals are met in full at the national level.
On behalf of the Organisation, OPCW Director-General Pfirter commended the African Union for its firm support for effective implementation of the CWC, in its pursuit of peace and security on the African continent. He encouraged those States in Africa that have not yet joined the Convention to do so without delay, stressing that the Convention provides States Parties real benefits by enhancing security, trust and national capacities and thus, ultimately, development. Ambassador Pfirter underscored Africa’s commitment to ensuring the elimination of these weapons of mass destruction, and emphasized that through effective implementation of the Convention, African States Parties can contribute substantially towards the international effort to ensure that these chemicals cannot be misused as instruments of terror.
20/2005