Belgium, which will assume the European Union presidency in July, will advocate "cooperation with a human face" in Africa with a focus on sustainable development, Belgian Cooperation Secretary Eddy Boutmans said here Tuesday.
"Development should be based on history, tradition, the particularities of each region, of every population," said Boutmans, who had arrived Sunday in Addis Ababa, where the Organization of African Unity (OAU) is headquartered.
"The Belgian government has decided to attach greater importance to Africa in its international policy. This continent should not be forgotten," Boutmans told AFP.
Belgium, which cut back cooperation with its former colonies in Africa in the late 1990s, early this year signaled a wish to return with a trip by Foreign Minister Louis Michel to the Great Lakes region, stopping in seven countries involved in or affected by the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt paid a visit to Rwanda a year ago.
Two-thirds of the countries that receive aid from Belgium -- which has pledged to spend 0.7 percent of its Gross National Product (GNP) on cooperation funding -- are in Africa: Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, the DRC, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Morocco, Mozambique, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania and Uganda.
Boutmans also announced Tuesday that Belgium would cancel all of Ethiopia's bilateral debt to Brussels, amounting to more than 711 million Belgian francs (around 15 million dollars.
Under an agreement signed Monday, Ethiopia will first pay 40 million Belgian francs (about 900,000 dollars), Boutmans told AFP -- ADDIS ABABA (AFP)
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