Africa's transformation must be anchored on Africa's interests, says ECA's Carlos Lopes

The Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) Mr. Carlos Lopes today urged member States attending the African Union Executive Council to celebrate Africa’s return to the path of growth with caution as the Continent "still faces important challenges which must be urgently and effectively dealt with.” In his first statement to the Council since taking office as Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Africa five months ago, Lopes welcomed the theme of this year’s Summit,‘Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance’ underscoring that the Council, just like the Summit which it advises and supports, “symbolizes the very essence of the pan-Africanism which we are celebrating this year of the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity.” He highlighted a number of notable changes that have lifted Africa out of an “era of Afro-pessimism to a new era of Afro-enthusiasm", stating that from being unflatteringly described only a few years earlier as an open sore on the conscience of humanity, and as the hopeless continent, “Africa is now being described as being on the rise.”