Seychelles hosts key meeting of African mayors |13 May 2014

The United Cities of Local Governments of Africa (UCLG-A) has done a fantastic job in broadening and deepening the networks of cities of Africa and creating global awareness of the role of local authorities as partners in development.

Vice-President Danny Faure said this yesterday while officially opening the 10th executive committee meeting of the UCLG-Africa at the DoubleTree Resort & Spa by Hilton Hotel Seychelles – Allamanda at Anse Forbans.

Mr Faure commended the work of the current president of the UCLG-Africa, Khalifa Ababacar Sall, who is also the mayor of Dakar, and the strong leadership of his secretary general, Jean- Pierre Mbassi.

“In this year that we are celebrating the twentieth anniversary of the establishment of local administrations in Seychelles we are proud to add a new layer to the broad partnership that we are building with UCLG-A as we collectively reinvigorate efforts aimed at improving local governance and building sustainable cities in Africa,” said Mr Faure.

“Our unwavering support towards the UCLG-Africa work stems from our firm conviction that the local authorities of Africa have a pivotal role to play in propelling our continent to even higher levels of progress and prosperity,” he added.

The vice-president noted that the reason why Seychelles places such a high priority on the role of local authorities in the development of Africa is that in our globalised world there is now little difference in what is local and what is global.

“What happens in our cities have global repercussions. What happens in our districts can resonate at a global level and correspondingly what happens at the global scale directly affects the lives of our citizens,” he said.

VP Faure said the only way to handle globalisation is to take it as an opportunity but not as a threat and one way of doing that is empowering our committees and local governments in terms of its structures and in terms of giving the people the platforms to bring about change themselves.

“If a society has a shared vision of its future, based on trust and cohesion, along with policies that create opportunities for all and fairness in outcomes, its people should have no fear of the future and should be more open to change,” said Mr Faure.

VP Faure also noted that local governments need adequate financing and sufficient capacity to help drive local developments and empowering local governments means also facilitating discussions and exchanges in a meaningful way with civil society as actors of local governments, to bring public, private, non-governmental stakeholders together in your cities and in your communities as they are in direct contact with the population on a daily basis.

He pointed out that they have vital roles to play in key service delivery in a number of critical social sectors.
“By building more sustainable cities, communities and regions you will lead us to a more sustainable world as the prosperity that is generated from the smallest village to the largest city is central to the overall country’s success,” said Mr Faure.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jean-Paul Adam, said the 10th executive meeting of the UCLG-Africa being held here constitutes an essential link of the dynamic democracy at work on the African continent, adding that the UCLG-Africa is at the helm of local dynamic development of our countries.

“All governments now know they have to allow their citizens to voice their opinions. Apart from restoring democracy, the citizens want an equal economic, social and human development and shared riches that ensure them employment and better quality of life,” sad Minister Adam.

Jacqueline Moustache-Belle, co-president of UCLG-World and Vice-President of UCLG-Africa for the East African Region and also Mayor of Victoria, said as 2014 has been declared by the United Nations as the “International Year of Small Islands Developing States (Sids)” and Seychelles being the smallest African state both in terms of population and land area, what better moment for a small island state to host the executive meeting of a key organisation from one of the gigantic continents of the world – Africa!

She said each of the groupings of countries has its own ambitions, political practices, cultures, beliefs, traditions, socio-economic status which pose many challenges but warned of the need to pay careful attention in order not to stray from the road of common good as town and cities hold the cradles for nurturing peace, harmony and stability.

Khalia Ababacar Sall, the president of the UCLG-Africa and also the Mayor of Dakar, described the 10th executive committee meeting of UCLG-Africa as a strong moment to make decisions regarding the organisation which he described as something very important for its development.

He said UCLG-Africa is now a mature organisation which can be the voice of locals of Africa.
He said that local governments should be implicated in laws and regulations concerning the populations of Africa and should be interested and take part in decision making.

At yesterday’s ceremony recipients of distinctions granted by the President of Congo, Denis Sassou Nguesso, according to a decree he signed in February 2013, received their honours.
They were decorated by the vice-president of UCLG-Africa for the Central African Region, Jean Hugues Ngouelondele, on behalf of President Nguesso.

There were also presentations on the causes, impacts, measures taken, position of Seychelles and the consequences on the fight against piracy under the theme ‘The Situation of Piracy in the Indian Ocean’ by Jacques Belle, director of the Anti Piracy Unit (UAP) of the Indian Ocean Commission.

The deliberations of the executive committee meeting of UCLG-Africa are organised around the implementation of the UCLG-Africa activities adopted during the last session of the executive committee meeting held on September 31, 2013 in Rabat, Morocco; the financial situation of UCLG-Africa; the current status of the UCLG-Africa initiative about the adoption of the African Charter on Values and Principles of decentralisation and local development as well as the protocol on Decentralised Trans-Border cooperation at the African Union level; the partnership agreements being discussed between UCLG-Africa and the African Development Bank (AfDB), the European Commission, the Cities Alliance, the French Cooperation, the French Development Agency, the German Cooperation Agency (GIZ) and the Swiss Cooperation.