Establishment of AU reconstruction center in Egypt turning point: Advisor

CAIRO – 5 March 2020: Legal advisor of the African Union Namira Negm on Thursday said that the establishment of an AU center for reconstruction and development in Egypt will be a turning point in building peace in the continent, Egyptian state’s news agency MENA reported.

Ambassador Negm is the first Egyptian to serve as legal adviser of the African Union. Within the framework of the official duties of this high-level post, she was able to play an important role in the consolidation of the historic Pan-African Free Trade Agreement, hailed by the Heads of State and Government and by the experts for its positive impact on trade.

The center should serve as a platform for comprehensive coordination to help countries emerging from conflicts, Negm told a seminar on the AU's efforts to face challenges, which kicked off here earlier today.

She added that the center will be operative soon, noting that an agreement was already signed in Egypt's Aswan.

The structure of the center was endorsed during the last summit in the Upper Egyptian city in February, Negm said.

Egypt, South Sudan, Nigeria, Morocco, and Algeria are the largest contributors as they form 60 percent of the AU's budget, besides Angola that was recently added to the list, Negm said in February last year.

In December 2018, Egypt’s Ministry of Youth and Sports opened Africa Summer School 2063 in central Cairo’s Gezira Island, in the presence of Namira Negm, the African Union Legal Counsel.

This school is the first concrete implementation on the ground of the recommendations of World Youth Forum, the aspirations of the AU’s Agenda 2063, the mechanisms of African Youth Charter and finally, the foundation of international relations of Egypt’s Vision 2030.

Africa Summer School 2063 is one of the projects of the fourth edition of the African Awareness Program, sponsored this year, from a technical standpoint, by the Panafrican Youth Union, the African Peer Review Mechanism Program in South Africa and the African Graduate School, as an academic partner, one of the oldest academic institutions specializing in African affairs in Egypt and the Middle East.

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MENA contributed to the reporting.