Kuwait reaffirms continued support for development in Africa and enhancement of international partnerships to achieve development goals
Diplomatic Attaché Yousef Al-Mansour confirmed Kuwait's continued support for development in Africa through the Kuwait Fund and international partnerships.
Translated by Qiyas from الراي — Original source
This came in the statement delivered by Kuwait’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Yusuf Al-Mansour, yesterday evening, Monday, before the UN General Assembly during its discussion of the agenda item on progress in implementing sustainable development in Africa, international support, causes of conflict, and the promotion of lasting peace on the continent.
Al-Mansour said that the African Union’s Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development constitute two complementary frameworks for eradicating poverty, reducing inequalities, and enhancing the resilience of African societies, emphasizing that peace and development are interlinked and cannot be achieved in isolation from one another.
He noted that the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development’s activities have extended to approximately 96 percent of the African continent through loans, grants, and development contributions covering infrastructure, energy, water, transport, and essential services.
He recalled the Arab-African Summit hosted by Kuwait in 2013, which saw the launch of several development initiatives, most notably the Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Sumait Award for African Development, valued at one million dollars annually, alongside the announcement of providing concessional loans to African countries worth one billion dollars through the Kuwait Fund, and an initiative to invest and guarantee an additional one billion dollars in cooperation with international institutions.
Al-Mansour stressed the importance of addressing the development financing gap, the growing debt burden, and the economic impacts of climate change and armed conflicts, while enhancing access to concessional financing and mobilizing long-term investments to support the development priorities of African countries.
He underscored the importance of strengthening cooperation between the African Union and the United Nations, and expanding Arab-African partnerships in the fields of renewable energy, food security, digital transformation, and education, while reaffirming African ownership and leadership of development priorities and programs, as well as youth capacity building.
