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Cross-border cooperation, “lever of peace and development” in Africa
January 2014“Build bridges between the States through the construction of development programmes that are going to join together the communities on either side of physical borders” was the objective of the conference on cross-border cooperation which took place on 17 to 19 December 2013 in Dakar, Senegal, under the aegis of the UEMOA1, attended by Aminata Touré, prime minister of Senegal, ministers from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin and Guinea-Bissau, representatives of Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, the African Union and the ECOWAS, and many local elected representatives and experts.
To deal with growing security issues and combat the development of the illegal economy, smuggling and terrorism, the States must reinstitute the border areas and, to this end, rely on support from the local authorities. Practical initiatives to provide services to the border populations and to produce joint infrastructures have been presented, but they remain isolated.
As Abdoulaye Sene, president of the Global Local Forum2, stressed:
“The aim is to take a fresh look at all the possibilities offered by cross-border cooperation to contribute to the construction of societies with much higher levels of solidarity, territories that dialogue, but above all to the consolidation of peace and security in our different territories.”
1 West African Economic and Monetary Union
2 Scientific organiser of the conference.
More info [FR]