Motlanthe to attend Ibsa summit
7 October 2008
President Kgalema Motlanthe is expected to attend the third India, Brazil and South African Summit, to be held in New Delhi next week, where he will meet with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Brazilian President Lula da Silva.
The three Heads of State will meet on 15 October to look at ways to jointly meet the challenges of energy and food security, as well as global economic development and governance.
Business leaders from the three countries will meet earlier, on 13 and 14 October, to discuss trilateral cooperation in business and improve trade.
Improving tourism
During the summit, the three countries will sign an agreement to promote cooperation in the area of tourism, including an exchange programme for students between leading academic institutions in the tourism sector.
Last week, the three countries pledged to enhance their coordination on political and multilateral issues including reform of global governance institutions on the sidelines of the United Nation General Assembly in New York.
Several non-permanent member countries in the United Nations are seeking to make global bodies more representative of smaller and developing countries around the world.
Helping least developed nations
The Foreign Ministers of all three countries - SA's Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, India's Pranab Mukherjee and Brazil's Celso Amorim - also looked into ways to fast-track the disbursement of funds from the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum to projects in several least developed countries around the world.
In a statement they issued after their meeting last week, the three countries approved support for five more projects in addition to two existing ones in solid waste management in Haiti and agriculture development in Guinea-Bissau.
"The new project approved for support included phase two of agriculture development in Guinea-Bissau, strengthening infrastructure and capacity to combat HIV/AIDS in Burundi, irrigation and watershed management in Lao People's Democratic Republic," the ministers said in a statement.
They also approved refurbishment of health care infrastructure in Cape Verde and building of a sports facility to promote constructive youth engagement in Palestine.
Source: BuaNews
