His Excellency President Dr Julius Maada Bio is among the world leaders hosted by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, at a reception at the Elysee Palace ahead of the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024 in Paris.

President Macron, accompanied by his wife, Brigitte Macron, warmly welcomed President Bio and over 70 Heads of State and Government on a majestic red carpet laid out in the courtyard of the Elysee Palace.

Other notable attendees included the United Kingdom Prime Minister, Keir Starmer MP, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Qatar’s Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame, and Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye.

In addition to the heads of state, other distinguished guests at the Elysee Palace reception included the United States First Lady, Jill Biden, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations, António Guterres.

Following the reception, President Bio and the other world leaders proceeded to the banks of the Seine River, where thousands of spectators gathered to witness the glittering opening ceremony of the Olympic Games 2024.

The event marked the beginning of a global celebration of sportsmanship and unity, showcasing the best of international athletic talent. The 2024 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad and officially branded as Paris 2024, is an international multi-sport event that will run from 26 July to 11 August 2024.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of State House Sierra Leone.

Dozens of finance and foreign ministers met this week to call for radical action to reform the international financial architecture, empower developing countries in international institutions and channel trillions of dollars towards sustainable development in Africa and other developing countries.  

Nine years after the historic agreement on financing for development, the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, United Nations Member States once again convened in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to renew the push for sustainable development financing and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“Faced with sky-high debt burdens and costs of capital, developing countries have limited prospects of financing the Sustainable Development Goals,” stated António Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations in a video message to the conference. He continued: “The Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development provides a unique opportunity to tackle these challenges head on. It opens the door for world leaders to adopt ambitious reforms to deliver affordable long-term financing at scale – and deliver the SDG Stimulus. And it presents a unique opportunity to reform an international financial system that is outdated, dysfunctional and unfair.”

After four years of a series of global shocks – including the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical conflicts and economic instability – the SDG financing gap for developing countries has ballooned to USD 4 trillion annually. The financing gap and accompanying debt challenges have worsened poverty and inequality, putting the world off track to meet international targets set in 2015. The challenges countries face in raising sufficient resources have laid bare structural flaws in the international financial architecture and accelerated calls for reforms.

“This meeting provided the opportunity to take stock of the steps we must take to fill the financing gaps and meet the development needs of all people around the world,” said Mr. Li Junhua, the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN DESA), and Secretary-General of the FfD4 conference. “The ministers, experts and other stakeholders that gathered here in Addis Ababa made clear that we cannot continue with business as usual and must dramatically reshape the international financial system to ensure investment where it is most needed.”

Ministers and global experts unveiled proposals for reforming the rules and governance of international taxation, and for addressing countries facing debt crises, including through new international mechanisms to resolve situations of sovereign debt default.

“The international financial architecture created nearly 80 years ago needs to be reformed to respond to the most pressing challenges of African countries in a more effective and inclusive manner,” said Mr. Claver Gatete, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. “African countries are taking a leadership role in pressing for changes to global tax and financial systems, and they are clear that the international system needs to better support their sustainable development aspirations.”

The Preparatory Committee meeting brought together representatives of at least 103 countries, including high-level representatives, as well as representatives of multilateral development banks, United Nations system entities and other intergovernmental organizations, the private sector and non-governmental organizations. Almost 800 participants discussed the full range of financing issues, including debt, taxation, trade, private finance, development cooperation, technology and data.  

The five-day meeting was the first of four preparatory meetings to be held ahead of the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4) Conference taking place in Sevilla, Spain, in 2025, with a mandate from the UN General Assembly to support reform of the international financial architecture. 

Subsequent sessions of the Preparatory Committee will be held in New York in December 2024, and in February and April in 2025.  A one-day intersessional multi-stakeholder hearing will also be convened in New York in October 2024 as part of the preparatory process for the Conference.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

The ECOWAS Centre for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency (ECREEE) is proud to announce the inauguration of solarization projects at three hospitals in Ghana. These projects include a 61KWp system at Finney Hospital, a 21KWp system at Barnor Memorial Hospital, and a 30KWp system at Mother-Love Hospital.

Developed and implemented in partnership with Tradeworks Limited, a local solar energy company, these projects received technical support and co-funding from ECREEE through the ECOWAS Special Intervention Fund (ESIF). The solar systems will ensure an uninterrupted power supply to the beneficiary hospitals, significantly contributing to the provision of excellent healthcare services in their respective communities.

The inauguration ceremony at Finney Hospital was attended by several notable figures, including the Director for Renewable Energy, Mr. Seth Mahu, who represented the Honourable Minister of Energy of Ghana; the Director for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency at the Energy Commission of Ghana, Mr. Kofi Agyarko, who represented the Executive Secretary; Executive Director of ECREEE, Mr. Jean Francis Sempore; the Chief Medical Director of Finney Hospital, Dr. Allen Steele-Dadzie; and the Chief Executive Officer of Tradeworks Limited, Mr. Randy Sey.

These projects mark a significant step forward in enhancing the quality of healthcare services in the region. By providing uninterrupted power supply through these solar systems, the project ensures that medical facilities can operate efficiently without the disruptions caused by power outages.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

Upon completing a four-day visit to Tunisia, in which she met with human rights defenders, civil society representatives, the Tunisian Judges Association, lawyers, political parties, journalists, victims of human rights violations and families of arbitrarily detained people, Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard said:

“It is alarming and distressing to witness the drastic rollback of the human rights progress that Tunisia had made since the 2011 revolution. Three years on since President Kais Saied suspended Parliament and began to seize control of the State, violations that we thought part of Tunisia’s past are becoming more and more discernible and systematic.  

“The institution of justice has been brought to heel, while arrests and arbitrary prosecutions are multiplying, affecting the leaders of the political opposition, journalists, activists, lawyers, magistrates, trade unionists, businesspeople, civil servants, women judges and activists, migrants and refugees. People who have not yet been directly affected told me they fear that their freedom could be curtailed at any time. 

“My visit to Tunisia coincided with the run up to October’s presidential elections. Instead of the vibrant debates of a pluralist political scene, I observed government repression, fuelling fear and dread about what’s to come. Many political opposition leaders and government critics are in arbitrary detention, presidential candidates face restrictions and prosecutions, many journalists and commentators have been sentenced to imprisonment, and civil society is under threat of further repression.

“Most leaders of opposition parties are being held in pre-trial detention. They include Issam Chebbi, secretary general of the Jomhouri party; Ghazi Chaouachi, former secretary general of the Attayar party; Jaouher Ben Mbarek, one of the leaders of the political coalition Salvation Front; Abir Moussi, secretary general of the Free Doustourian party, and many high-level Nahdha leaders, such as Rached Ghannouchi, Noureddine Bhiri, Sahbi Atig and others. They face an array of charges, including some under Tunisia’s counter-terrorism law, that carry heavy sentences. These prosecutions, as part of the crackdown on the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, demonstrate the authorities’ intolerance of any challenge or dissent.

“Amnesty International has documented the drastic steps that authorities have taken to dismantle judicial independence since 25 July 2021. Throughout my visit I witnessed how the rights to a fair trial, freedom of expression and peaceful assembly have been directly impacted.

“While the authorities are intensifying their crackdown, human rights defenders such as Judge Hmedi, president of the Tunisian Judges Association, and his colleagues continue to defend hard-earned guarantees of independence. They do so despite facing reprisals in the form of criminal charges, such as those brought against Judge Hmedi over a judges strike in protest at the president arbitrarily dismissing 57 judges and prosecutors.

“The highlight of my visit was meeting with the independent judges who have refused to compromise, with the lawyers relentlessly fighting the arbitrary prosecutions that political opponents are being subjected to, and with the brave family members of detainees leading the fight for their release.

“The Tunisian authorities are also committing appalling violations against migrants and refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, characterized by racist rhetoric at the highest levels of the State, the normalization of mass deportations at the borders, violent interceptions at sea, and arrests based on racial profiling. Recently, those providing assistance to migrants or advocating for their rights through their work in civil society organizations have also faced arbitrary investigations and, in some cases, arrests and detention.

“Through crude indifference to their obligations under international law, the European Union and its member states have shamefully granted a veneer of legitimacy to this government’s repression in the name of border externalization and counterterrorism. These obligations require European leaders to stand up to the Tunisian authorities’ assault on rights and freedoms, but instead they struck a deal to finance Tunisia’s containment of migrants and refugees, amid a wave of violent racism.”

Amnesty International calls on the Tunisian authorities to:

– Drop the unfounded charges against dissidents and critics and release all those arbitrarily detained solely for the exercise of their human rights;

– Reverse all measures taken to undermine judicial independence, including by repealing decree law 2022-35, which gives the President the authority to summarily dismiss judges; implement the decision of the Administrative Tribunal of 9 August 2022 and reinstate the 57 judges and prosecutors arbitrarily dismissed by the President; stop all interference of the executive in matters concerning the independence of the judiciary; and end all forms of harassment or reprisal against Tunisian judges and lawyers;

– Repeal Presidential Decree-Law 2022-54; release all those prosecuted and detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.

The European Union and its member states must re-assess their engagement with the Tunisian authorities to ensure that cooperation does not lead to complicity in human rights violations against migrants, refugees or government opponents, and instead contributes to progress towards Tunisia’s human rights obligations.

The Tunisian authorities did not respond to requests for meetings with the Amnesty International delegation led by Agnès Callamard during her visit from 16 to 19 July.

Background

Three years after President Kais Saied’s power grab on 25 July 2021, Tunisia continues to witness a significant rollback of the human rights progress following the 2011 revolution.    

Since 2022, authorities have carried out successive waves of arrests targeting political opponents and perceived critics of President Saied. More than 70 people, including political opponents, lawyers, journalists, activists and human rights defenders, have been subjected to arbitrary prosecutions and/or arbitrary detention since the end of 2022. At least 40 people remained arbitrarily detained as of May 2024 in connection with the exercise of their internationally protected rights such as right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. In May 2024, authorities escalated repressive measures against migrants, refugees, and human rights defenders working to protect their rights.    

In July 2023, the European Union signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Tunisia under which, among other things, the EU has agreed to provide technical support to deter Europe-bound migration, including €105 million with a focus on “border management” as well as nearly €1 billion in additional loans and financial support amid Tunisia’s unprecedented economic crisis. This deal, which lacked transparency or parliamentary scrutiny, remains in operation. Amnesty International has repeatedly written to the EU’s leadership raising concerns over the repercussions of cooperation with Tunisia without a prior human rights risk assessment.

Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Amnesty International.