2023-11-27 - Extraordinary SPG session - Introductory remarks - SWAC president

SPG extraordinary session on regional challenges Introductory remarks by the President of the SWAC 1 Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Members and Partners, Before I begin, I would like to welcome you and thank you for accepting my invitation. In my introductory remarks at the meeting of our Strategy and Policy Group last June, I undertook to step up regular consultations with members and strategic thinking on emerging issues in the region.

As we are all aware, over the last few decades the region has been faced with a series of interconnected challenges (climatic, food, security, socio-economic, etc.), fuelled by both structural and cyclical factors.

When it comes to food issues, for example, the statistics are worrying and cannot leave us indifferent.

Between 2019 and 2023, the number of people in need of food and nutritional assistance will more than quadruple, rising from 10.7 million to 42.5 million.

As we have also seen, these climatic, food and other uncertainties have been overtaken over the last five years by socio-political turbulence, with unconstitutional regime changes in several countries. These crises are occurring at a time when the majority of young people are losing their bearings because of a lack of jobs and prospects for the future and are expressing strong expectations that the modes of state governance should be overhauled. They are also taking place at a time when growing global geopolitical fragmentation threatens to have a negative impact on development cooperation in the region.

Members and partners, Should we get carried away by recent events in the region? Events which, incidentally, could be the result of dormant structural problems that the public authorities were unable to see coming, let alone anticipate.

In this respect, allow me to remind you that the relevance of our Club comes from its ability to transcend current events, in order to encourage analysis and reflection that will enable us to anticipate and prevent.

This is part of its DNA, which is why its founders were delighted to have created a 'Club of Hope'.

In inviting you to this discussion, my ambition is first and foremost to strengthen the collective thinking of our members and partners so that the Club can make a greater contribution to tackling the region's crucial challenges – in particular by providing evidence, data and analyses that are relevant to decision-making.

In doing so, the roundtable discussion we'll be having in a moment has two aims:

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The first is to share your assessments of the challenges over the last ten years. Some of you are probably wondering whether you should or could continue your commitment to the region. Others think it would be appropriate to continue their commitment but are wondering 'how to go about it'. More generally, how can cooperation instruments and strategies be adapted to these new contexts? Are new ways of proceeding possible in order to ensure more sustainable impacts and better prevent current crises in the future?

These are just some of the questions on which the roundtable should provide an opportunity to share experiences and lessons learned over the last few years.

The second expectation is to see how we can strengthen our Club's contribution to the search for anticipatory and preventive responses. As I said earlier, we must bear in mind that our Club is not a crisis management tool. Similarly, its action is not intended to interfere with or replace the prerogatives of regional political organisations – those organisations that have the mandate to manage political crises, including coups d'état. That said, our discussions should remain within the scope of our Club's mandate, namely its ability to shed light on the future, through the production of analyses, data and tools, but also through the facilitation of strategic dialogue to drive the desired sustainable transformations. To refresh your memory, and by way of illustration, its analyses indicate, for example, that in less than 20 years, the region's population will pass the 700 million mark, and the majority will be urban. These demographic and urban shifts will increase the pressure on public authorities to respond to the countless social demands (health, education, food and nutrition, employment, etc.) – and any failure to do so is bound to lead to tension, even revolt and instability. The Club's analyses also reveal that the region's food economy will be worth more than 480 billion US dollars over the next 20 years, and will provide more than 131 million jobs, creating a fountain of opportunities to meet the expectations of young people.

So how can we optimise our Club's knowledge production potential to help politicians make the right decisions and better anticipate and prevent crises?

Dear Members and Partners, To sum up, I would simply say that, rather than getting bogged down in the current economic debate, our Club needs to gain altitude and stay focused on the structural issues facing the region – by working hard on issues that we are certain will be at play over the next 20 years or more. That's how we can help the region to anticipate and anticipate better, drawing on the potential it has in abundance.

I trust that the roundtable will give us the beginnings of answers to these questions. And I have no doubt that we will have a relaxed and very productive discussion.

Thank you for your attention.