Aqeel: We continue to emphasize the danger of terrorism and armed conflict for development

Hajar: Corruption and external interference are at the top of the challenges for the brown continent

Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights participated in the African Regional Forum for Sustainable Development, which was held in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, last week. The forum was attended by a group of officials and public figures headed by Zimbabwean President Emerson Manangagua and Amina Muhammad, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, in addition to representatives of African embassies and ministries. And regional and international civil society organizations.

The Maat Foundation had received an invitation to head the civil society contributions related to peace in the forum, and as a result, Hajar Monsef, Head of the African Affairs and Sustainable Development Unit at the Maat Foundation, organized preparatory meetings with various stakeholders from organizations, labor unions and development initiatives to come up with a package of recommendations for the implementation of Goal 16 (for Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions) in Africa is elevated to the High Level Policy Forum To be held at the United Nations Headquarters in New York next July.

During the main session on Goal 16 and Peace, Moncef represented African civil society on the stage alongside the Head of the African Office at the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Assistant Minister for Good Governance and Anti-Corruption in Gabon, Deputy Minister of Justice in Sierra Leone, Director of Legal Affairs at the Ministry of Justice in Kenya, and a delegate The African Peer Review Mechanism.

During her speech, Moncef shed light on the three most important challenges facing the achievement of peace in Africa First, education As some African countries suffer from poor educational services and their scarcity, which drives youth and children to flee school, and consequently, illiteracy rates and violence increase.

Second outbreaks Corruption This in turn affects the provision of all services from the state to the citizen, and thirdly External interventions Which seeks to ignite conflicts in African countries to achieve economic and political gains.

At the end of her speech, Hajar Moncef recommended all African stakeholders to join hands and cooperate to advance the development field and to become Africa for Africans.

For his part, Ayman Aqil, President of the Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights stated that Maat has repeatedly called for the importance of regional solidarity to fight terrorism in the continent, as African countries witness terrorist operations on a daily basis and thousands of innocent victims leave as a result, which poses a great danger to achieving sustainable development, so how can countries The improvement of the education or health sector or climate protection in light of the conflict and the absence of security and stability. Therefore, the Foundation continuously recommends the importance of looking at combating terrorism and resolving conflict as a gateway to achieving the rest of the sustainable development goals.

It is worth noting that the Maat Foundation will continue to work with the African civil society that participated in the sessions of the Forum on Peace until the month of July to come up with a set of more detailed recommendations that will be circulated at the continental level and presented to the relevant UN agencies, headed by the High Level Policy Forum.