São Paulo – Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva should discuss cooperation between Brazil and Africa at the 17th African Union Summmit, to take place in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea. According to his press department, Lula should have an intervention on Friday (01). The theme of the event is "Youth empowerment for sustainable development”.
On leaving the presidency, Lula made public his intention of working for the development of the African continent and for the eradication of poverty and hunger. According to his advisory, his participation in the meeting is among these objectives.
In this respect, the former president plans to show the potential he sees in cooperation between Brazil and Africa, in integration that may bring mutual benefits. He had already been operating in this direction during his government, which had among its foreign policy priorities the generation of closer ties with developing nations, especially in Africa and the Middle East.
In 2009, while still president, Lula participated in the 13th African Union Summit, in Sirte, Libya, as a guest. At the time, he said that Brazil would like to aid Africa “to promote its own green revolution”, i.e., to significantly expand food production on the continent. Several cooperation activities were released during his term in office, including the installation of a Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) office in Ghana.
Apart from Brazil-Africa dialogue, the former president plans to discuss the election, last Sunday, of the Brazilian José Graziano da Silva to the post of new director general of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). Graziano was a minister in the first of Lula’s two terms in office and, later, was nominated by the Brazilian government as the representative to the organisation, headquartered in Rome.
Delegation
The former president was invited by his successor, president Dilma Rousseff, to head the Brazilian delegation to observe the African Union Summit. Apart from Lula, the delegation includes ambassador Paulo Cordeiro, undersecretary-general for Africa and the Middle East at the Brazilian Foreign Office (Itamaraty), and the Brazilian ambassadors to Malabo and Adis Abeba, the Ethiopian capital. The African Union’s headquarters are in Adis Abeba.
According to information disclosed by the Itamaraty, apart from presenting opportunities for exchange in areas it dominates, Brazil may also learn with the experience of the African Union. One example is in the area of security, as the African institution has a Security Council which intervenes in regional conflicts. In this sector, according to the Itamaraty, the articulation between the countries of Africa is more developed than that of the Unasul, the community that includes the South American nations.
The African Union has chosen the strengthening of youth simultaneously with the so-called “Arab Springtime” in the countries of the north of the continent, like Egypt, Tunisia and Libya. Protests in the region, which resulted in the ousting of the Egyptian and Tunisian dictators and in the deflagration of a civil conflict in Libya, originated from the protests of dissatisfied youths.
After the meeting in Equatorial Guinea, Lula should travel to Angola and, in future, to Egypt and Tunisia.
*Translated by Mark Ament
