JOHANNESBURG - Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has met African heads of state, foreign ministers and representatives of the United Nations and other multilateral bodies to discuss how to secure peace across the continent as a necessary condition for prosperity.
In a statement on the meet the African Development Bank said Trudeau, who chairs the United Nations Peacebuilding Commission, called for cooperation among international partners and governments to create economic opportunity during the Monday meeting, held on the sidelines of the 33rd African Union summit in Ethiopia.
The meeting was aimed at strengthening the UN commission’s partnership with the African Union and to better integrate African priorities in conflict prevention and bolstering economic security.
It discussed, among other issues, the role international financial institutions and youth job creation can play in averting extremism and conflict on the continent.
Trudeau said one of the biggest challenges both developed and developing countries faced was the perception that governments were indifferent.
“In this time of change, in this time of transformation of the global economy, time of conflict, time of climate conflict, people worry that the system has no place for them and isn’t providing them with what they need,” he said.
African Development Bank President Akinwumi Adesina applauded Canada's role in enabling the bank’s work on the continent.
“The successful replenishment of the bank’s African Development Fund 15 - to which Canada contributed substantially with $355 million - will allow the bank to deploy an additional $1.2 billion to address fragility, strengthen resilience and sustain peace and economic security,” Adesina said.