Final Declaration of 29th Abant Platform Forum “Africa: Between Experience and Inspiration”

- We, the participants of the 29th Abant Platform Forum on “Africa: Between Experience and Inspiration”, held at Abant/Turkey on 28-30 June 2013, hereby, welcome the initiative of Journalists and Writers Foundation/Abant Platform, for a long and lasting partnership, based on mutual respect, goodwill, compassion and understanding between the Peoples of Africa and the People of Turkey.

- We acknowledge the commitment by the Abant Platform to broaden the knowledge base on Africa and Turkey to promote the image and realities about the Peoples of Africa and Turkey through all the means of the media, scholarly and socio-cultural activities at all levels.

- The Forum recognizes the significance of the African values, customs, traditions in all its diversities in bringing solutions of the current universal issues and believes in elaboration of these values in future forums to be utilized for the benefit of the Peoples of the World.

- The Forum has identified education as a key to solving the major problems in the world, not alone in Africa. Therefore, it has been emphasized that equitable access by all to high quality, universal education should be promoted with the assistance of all governmental and non-governmental organizations in close coordination with the international organizations as well as the African Union (AU) and the Regional Economic Communities (RECs).In this regard, the Forum has agreed that the coordination and collaboration between different educational institutions in Africa and Turkey should be intensified at all levels.

- The Forum has recognized the diversity of health problems in different regions and countries of Africa and emphasized that the focus on prevailingpublic health issues, such as health education, preventive and curative medicine, access to health services by all, should be prioritized accordingly. In doing so, collaboration among all the international and national stakeholders should be intensified.

- The Forum recognizes that the growing African economies should transform from consumption and raw material export alone into local production and processing raw material into end products to be utilized both internally and externally. In this regard, the exploitation of the vast energy potentials of the continent and the development of basic infrastructure are crucial to the attainment of this vision. In doing so, the African economies should benefit from the experiences of emerging economies like Turkey.

- The Forum takes note of several sectors to be urgently addressed during the next two decades, among which are the eradication of famine and mass poverty, epidemics, illiteracy, internal conflicts and corruption. Among the sectors to promote, the Forum has elaborated,inter alia, transparency, human rights,freedom of media, culture of peace,respect for diversity, gender equality, religious tolerance, public health care, environmental sensitivity, youth development, women’s and children’s welfare, industrialization and agricultural reforms. The Forum underscores good governance as the sine qua non for the accomplishment of all the aforementioned objectives. The establishment of the criteria for good governance should be developed, endorsed and promoted under the auspices of the AU and the RECs with the support of the media.

- The Forum, in this new spirit of cooperation and collaboration in full partnership between the Peoples of Africa and the People of Turkey, looks forward to striving together for a better future for all, working together at all levels to achieve the abovementioned goals, and agrees to meet in Addis Ababa in 2014.

Published on Abant Platform, 30 June 2013, Sunday

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