Rabat hosts Sahara Sahel Observatory general assembly

The works of the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) extraordinary general assembly opened in Rabat Monday under the chairmanship of Moroccan Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Sea-Fisheries Habib El Malki.

In his opening address, Malki said of the royal message to the meeting helped define the issue of the struggle against desertification and make it part of a socioeconomic development strategy involving all actors to unleash dynamics of lasting development and curb poverty.

His majesty's call to rehabilitate the economic, social and cultural dimension of development is now a major target for our organization in its quest for adequate means to defeat the effects of protracted drought and creeping desertification, he said.

For the observatory's vice-chairman and Niger's minister of environment and struggle against desertification, Issoufou Assoumane, the message provides a genuine strategy and program for the organization.

The Rabat-meeting is meant to make of the OSS a political and scientific instrument at the service of a regional space of concertation, cooperation and South-South partnership. The three-day event looks into management and institutional aspects and the issue of "environment and globalization" and wraps up the "2000 strategy" listing the observatory's activity programs.

Twenty African countries, four European countries and several sub-regional and international organizations take part in the emergency meeting of the Tunis-based OSS. Morocco chairs the organization and represents its south-side along with Egypt, Mauritania, Niger, Uganda, Kenya and Tunisia.