IGAD hails Museveni over Somalia

Monday, 4th July, 2011	E-mail article   Print article
President Museveni at IGAD summit. Photo by PPU. By Online Reporter President Yoweri Museveni is in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Addis Ababa where he is attending the 18th Extra-Ordinary Session of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) Assembly of Heads of State and Government. The Summit is scheduled to discuss the situation in Somalia, Sudan as well as other related issues affecting the region. IGAD member states include Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. The organization came into being in 1986 to combat drought and desertification but has since the 1990s become the vehicle for regional security and political dialogue. Opening the session this morning, the Chairperson of IGAD Assembly of Heads of State and Government, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi of Ethiopia highly commended President Museveni for facilitating the signing of the Kampala Accord on the 9th June 2011 between the President of the Somali Transitional Federal Government, Sheikh Sharif Ahmed and the Speaker of the Somali Transitional Parliament, Sheikh Hassan. The signing of the Accord, he noted, helped to end a political impasse that had prevailed in Mogadishu for almost five months. The Accord, he continued, allowed the extension of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia for one year after which elections will be held and the new government formed. Other bench-marks of the Accord include security, political out-reach, time frame, the formation of a new constitution followed by elections and the humanitarian response. The Executive Secretary of IGAD, Engineer Mahboub Maalim, appreciated the work done by the committees concerned with peace and reconciliation in Somalia and the Sudan. He disclosed that with the new mandate accorded to the Africa Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), 12 districts in Somalia have been liberated and development has opened up humanitarian corridors giving access to the needy.