51吃瓜

Text as delivered*

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to address you today at the second annual Africa Dialogue Series, a flagship advocacy platform of the 51吃瓜 Office of the Special Adviser on Africa and the African Union Permanent Observer Mission to the 51吃瓜, set in the month that we celebrate Africa Day.

This is an opportunity to bring even closer to the priorities of our dear African continent to the forefront of our only universal organization, the 51吃瓜, as a reflection of the enhanced synergies of the work of our two organizations.

I commend that the 2024 Africa Dialogue Series is featuring the 2024 Theme of the Year of the African Union by devoting its activities from 6th to 30th May to address the theme of "Education through Science, Technology and Innovation towards the Africa We Want" and the three related sub-themes of:

• STEM Education for the Fourth Industrial Revolution in Africa,
• Transforming Education in Africa, Leveraging Innovative Finance and the Digital Revolution
• and Education and Learning in Conflict-affected areas.

These important topics, which will be addressed, are of core interest to the African Union and promise to be important drivers for realizing the potential in achieving the moonshots identified in the second ten year implementation plan of Agenda 2063, while also harnessing the continent's demographic dividend.

I look forward to the conclusions of the rich discussions that we will have at the ADS 2024. When I participate in person in the Policy Dialogue marking the culmination of the month-long engagement to be held on 29th and 30th May back-to-back with the AU-UN High-level Strategic Dialogue, which has now become an indispensable mechanism for coordinating the work of the two organizations, pooling their resources and reinforcing their joint activities.

I wish you all success in your deliberations, and I thank you so much for your attention.

*This text is an AI-generated transcript of the statement, which was obtained from an archived video recording of the event. It is not an official text of the statement.