Your Excellency Madame Yassine Fall, Minister of African Integration and Foreign Affairs of Senegal
Your Excellency Mr. Carlos Pinto Pereira, Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Community of the Republic of Guinea-Bissau
Honourable Ministers and Excellencies Ambassadors
Distinguished Experts and Delegates from the Sister Republics of Guinea Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia
Ladies and Gentlemen
To begin with, I extend the warm and fraternal greetings of His Excellency Mr. Adama Barrow, President of the Republic of The Gambia to his brother His Excellency Mr. Bassirou Diomaye Faye, President and the entire Government and People of the Republic of Senegal and to the entire membership of this gathering.
Also, on behalf of my delegation, I would like to express through Your Excellency Madam Fall, my sincere appreciation and thank you to the Government and the brotherly People of Senegal for the usual and legendary hospitality accorded to us since our arrival in the beautiful city of Dakar and for all the befitting logistic arrangements put in place for the successful conduct of the First Edition of the Tripartite Meeting of Foreign Ministers of Guinea Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia on cooperation and integration in our sub-region.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
As we come to the end of this First Tripartite Meeting, I further seize the opportunity to convey my gratitude and appreciation to my dear sister Excellency Madam Yassine Fall and my dear brother Excellency Mr. Carlos Pinto PEREIRA for the collective will and efforts that led to this great initiative in furtherance of the realization of the vision of our leaders and the wishes and aspirations of the people of our sub-region.
The meeting is a response to the desire and vision of our 3 Presidents to accelerate and scale up cooperation and integration in the sub-region and has provided us with the opportunity to reflect, discuss and make recommendations on what we collectively urgently need to do to address the pressing demands and challenges of our people in a bid to transform and better their lives.
Therefore, as we commit ourselves to implementing the outcomes that emerged from this Tripartite Ministerial Meeting, I also seize this opportunity to thank the experts and delegates from the 3 countries for the tremendous efforts and the quality of their work.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen, The Gambia, Senegal and Guinea Bissau shared a lot in common. Even after the balkanization of Africa and the erecting of colonial borders, our populations always continue to feel that they are the same people speaking the same languages, same culture, religion, practice intermarriages and with the same aspirations and destiny.
This is further evidence by the fact that, there is hardly any citizen of Guinea Bissau, Senegal and The Gambia who does not have a relative and/or close friend across the borders.
The above alone goes to show the significance of our meeting which is also a demonstration of the willingness, determination and commitment of our leaders to foster much needed greater cooperation and integration.
Your Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is mainly the same people living and crisscrossing the three countries in search of better lives. However, even travelling within the sub-region is sometimes a nightmare and more importantly the trade figures between us leaves a lot to be desired.
With abundance of fertile and arable land, other natural resources, a youthful population, similarities in almost everything and the size of the population, greater cooperation and integration between us can only bring about increase stability, peace and prosperity for the sub-region.
If, our sub-region cannot integrate to serve as a model for greater integration and cooperation within ECOWAS, it would be difficult for one to hope for the integration and building of the Africa we want.
Within this context, we must always remember and pay tribute to our founding fathers who fought for our freedom, with the vision and desire of bringing development, cooperation and integration of the population of our respective countries in the ECOWAS Sub-Region and Africa as a whole. It is the same vision and mission that our 3 leaders want to realize in the best interest of our people.
Hence, our collective commitment and show of unity and solidarity will serve as an inspiration for our people and rekindle their hopes of working towards addressing our common challenges.
I am convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the outcomes of this Tripartite will contribute to accelerating socio-economic-cultural and political integration in the sub-region, and also facilitate achievements of greater peace, security, poverty alleviation and general development.
Excellencies, Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen,
Today, we all know that, our sub-region is not without challenges that require our collective concerted efforts to address in our endeavours to chart a future that would adequately respond to the needs and aspirations of our people especially women and young people of the sub-region.
Our sub-region continues to face challenges relating to transnational crimes, youth unemployment, irregular migration, climate change, need for industrialization, lack of market access, etc.
All of these require our urgent and diligent attention which we can provide through cooperation and integration, by trading more amongst ourselves, facilitating free movement of people, goods and services and sharing of timely information and joint collaborative security actions.
It is in this regard that, The Gambia is once again extremely honored to strongly support and be part of the continued process/initiative of integrating the people of the sub-region and my delegation look forward to full implementation of the outcome of our meeting to realize the wishes of our 3 leaders and people.
In conclusion, I once again extend my heartfelt appreciation to my dear sister Excellency Madam Yassine Fall and the Government of Senegal for the great welcome and hospitality and equally thank my dear brother Excellency Mr. Carlos Pinto PEREIRA for his great support. Together, we can change the narrative in favour of our sub-region. I thank you all and wish the delegates safe travels in their respective journeys.
