Follow-up meeting of France-Africa summit

Morocco led by Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation Mohamed Benaissa is taking part in the ministerial follow-up meeting of the France-Africa summit conference, held in Paris as of this December 7.

The mid-term follow-up meetings were instituted at the proposal of the late King Hassan II during the 15th France-Africa summit held in Casablanca in 1988, a statement by the Moroccan Foreign Ministry said.

The Paris three-day meeting will debate the consolidation of democratic institutions and sound governance, and peacekeeping and stability in the continent, through the setting up of peacekeeping forces. The indebtedness burden, the collapse of prices of raw materials, the shrinking of assistance to development, the link between security and development and the process of post-conflict reconstruction are also on the agenda.

Participants will equally review means of struggle against the plagues affecting the continent, such as aids and malnutrition, natural hazards etc.

The follow-up committee will probably set the venue of the coming summit to be held in Africa in year 2000.

The France-Africa summits, incepted in 1973, are held every two years alternately in France and in an African country. Morocco has always been present in these summits since its first participation in 1979.