Zinc Tour Reaches Annobon Island Of Equatorial Guinea

Third phase brings new-roof campaign to remote island.

Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, Second Vice President of Equatorial Guinea, Head of Defense and State Security, has expanded the national zinc sheet distribution to the island of Annobon.

This government-led initiative aims to improve living conditions for impoverished families throughout the nation by donating zinc sheets to replace the nipa roofs on rural houses.

“The zinc roof campaign is part of the government’s efforts to improve the living conditions of our country,” said Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue. “We will continue to work on other social projects such as building schools in these rural areas and providing access to drinking water installations.”

The zinc roof campaign has broadly covered the continental areas of the country and the island of Bioko, and is now in its third phase with the expansion into the remote island of Annobón. Thousands of zinc sheets have been donated and other services provided to improve health, education and sanitation.

The Second Vice President has spearheaded the campaign and the implementation of the various social projects that have accompanied it. The public-private initiative is carried out with support from international oil companies and is part of the government’s efforts to improve living conditions and generally raise the standard of living, especially in rural areas.

Equatorial Guinea Works To Integrate Central Africa Scientists

Malabo host of the Sub-regional Conference on Surgery in Central Africa

Equatorial Guinea has opened the Sub-Regional Conference on Surgery in Central Africa, which is aimed at integrating the surgical societies of the Central Africa sub-region as part of the sub-region’s efforts to integrate itself more effectively in the international scientific world.

Surgical society members from Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo and Gabon gathered on December 20, 2012, in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, for the two-day conference.

The conference provides surgeons and surgical specialists with the opportunity to collaborate and exchange ideas on the practices they undertake in their countries. The conference sessions will focus on tropical surgical pathology, endoscopic surgery in its current situation and prospects, cancer or tumor surgery, and trauma emergencies.

Equatorial Guinea recently hosted the 7^th ACP Summit in Sipopo, where Agapito Mba Mokouy, Minister of Foreign Affairs, called his country’s hosting of the meeting part of a foreign policy characterized by greater openness to the rest of the world. The Central Africa Surgery Sub-Regional Conference is part of the West African nation’s commitment to development and an essential axis of solidarity among African countries.

Malabo recently hosted the 96^th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers and the 7th Summit for African Caribbean and Pacific Heads of State and Government (ACP) on December 10-14. Over the past two years, Malabo has hosted events such as the African Union Summit, African-South America Forum, 9^th Leon H. Sullivan Summit, among others in Sipopo.

President Obiang Addresses 7th ACP Summit

H.E. Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Stresses Collaboration Between ACP Group and European Union

Sipopo, Ideal Place to Host International Summits and Conferences

 Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, President of Equatorial Guinea and President of the 7th Summit for African, Caribbean and Pacific Heads of State and Government (ACP), stressed collaboration between the ACP nations and the European Union on the last day of the Malabo Summit.

In his closing remarks, President Obiang said ACP nations and the EU should collaborate and benefit from what each group has to offer. “We are able to help the European Union, our vast supply of raw materials can contribute to the rebuilding of European countries, by the same token, we expect their technology contribution to the ACP nations. Both groups have the need to collaborate with each other.”

President Obiang continued to say, “The Malabo Summit confirmed the need of the ACP Group to become emergent countries. We have to work toward attaining international trade balance and promote internal socio-economic development to help the ACP Group with its international relations.”

President Obiang officially closed the 7^th ACP Summit by highlighting the good relationship and collaboration that Malabo received from the ACP Group and assured Equatorial Guinea will continue to collaborate with the ACP nations.

The closing ceremony was followed by a press conference. When talking about Sipopo, President Obiang said, “Sipopo came from the idea of being able to host summits, conferences not just at the national but international level, from Africa and beyond. Sipopo is both a meeting place and a touristic center. This has been a very successful creation for our country.”

Equatorial Guinea Urges Developing Countries To Develop Intelligent Strategies For Sustainable Development

Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Opens 7^th ACP Summit

Equatorial Guinean President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo called for stronger South-South economic global cooperation aimed at providing guidance for strategy and policies that allow the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of nations (ACP) to play an effective role in the international arena.

Heads of State and government from the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of nations (ACP) gathered on December 13, 2012, in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, for the 7^th Summit for African Caribbean and Pacific Heads of State and Government (ACP). 

In his welcoming remarks, President Obiang urged the ACP Countries to strengthen their existing economic and regional groups to reach total production capacity and become emergent economies. Equatorial Guinea proposed the creation of a mechanism for South-South global economic cooperation to replace the ACP Group’s many subsets.

“The new group can strengthen the Group of 77 to redirect it toward building the political, economic and social systems of the countries of the south, and he said that the meeting in Malabo may be the birth of this organization. “Whether we form a new group or provide assistance to the current ones, we should provide guidance and political strategy that allow our groups to play an effective role in the international arena,” said President Obiang.

President Obiang Nguema Mbasogo said, “We enjoy commercial flow with the European Union thanks to our natural resources. Cooperation with developed countries should allow ACP economies to reach sustainability; this cooperation should produce beneficial effects for both.”

“Energy problems, poverty struggles and climate change call for the ACP Group to strengthen security ties and cooperation, given the similarity of our socio-economic problems, in order to face these common challenges,” said President Obiang. “We must face the challenges derived from globalization and [our] economies. So our countries must commit to change through reforms.”

He said, “Secure access to energy will allow us to develop access to other areas that our countries need.”

President Obiang said it was an honor for Equatorial Guinea and Central Africa to host the Malabo Summit, and that the Central African nations are eager to propose solutions to the challenges that ACP countries face. “Equatorial Guinea hopes this Summit addresses the strategy that expresses a new North-South cooperation.”

John Dramani Mahama, President of the Republic of Ghana and the 6^th ACP Summit, said that President Obiang’s commitment to host the ACP Summit shows his commitment toward sustainable, economic and social development. He called Sipopo the ideal place to host summits, conferences and sporting events.

Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, ACP Group Secretary-General, praised Equatorial Guinea’s recent progress in his address to the Summit. “Within a decade Equatorial Guinea has made significant changes…because of the vision of the national leadership that will ensure that the country and its human development continue to grow toward building a free, democratic and prosperous society.”

The conference session on “The Future of the ACP Group in a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities” dealt with economic partnership agreements (EPAs) and other trade-related issues; meeting the challenges of peace, security, stability, and good governance; the future of development finance; and the enhancement of intra-ACP cooperation.

Afternoon sessions focused on the environment, climate change, food security and rural development in ACP countries.

Today’s ACP Summit was also attended by European Union Commissioner for Development Andris Piebalgs; Dr. Boni Yayi, President of the Republic of Benin and the African Union; Hon. Kenny D. Anthony, Prime Minister of St. Lucia and Chairman of the Conference of Heads of Government of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM); and Hon. Henry Puna, Prime Minister of Cook Islands and Chairman of the Forum of Pacific Islands.

First Ecuatoguinean Woman Receives Ph. D. In Medicine

Research was conducted on the island of Bioko and Continental Region

Equatoguinean Margarita Roka Elobo is the first woman to earn a medicine doctorate in Equatorial Guinea. Roka Elobo researched intestinal parasites associated with HIV infection in Equatorial Guinea as part of her doctorate thesis at the University of Zaragoza, Spain.

The thesis addressed the problem of intestinal parasitic diseases in HIV-positive patients in an environment where HIV infection reaches 5.2% of the adult population and many intestinal parasitic infections are endemic. The research was conducted on 533 HIV-positive participants and 110 HIV-negative participants, and took place on the island of Bioko and the Continental Region.

Her thesis was carried out under the direction of Maria Pilar Goñi and Antonio Clavel, faculty from the Parasitological Department of Microbiology, Preventive Medicine and Public Health of the University of Zaragoza.

Roka Elobo has been an intern of the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation, and Coordinator of the Clinical Analysis Laboratory Castroverde of Malabo. She is the author of "Health Education Handbook," published in 2001. In 2008, she received the Elena Escanero Gella award for research in Health Sciences for her final dissertation project.

Equatorial Guinea Calls For Stronger South-South Cooperation

Malabo hosted the opening ceremony of the 7^th Summit of African, Caribbean and Pacific Heads of State and Government

Equatorial Guinean Foreign Minister, Agapito Mba Mokuy, opened the 96^th Session of the ACP Council of Ministers with a call for stronger South-South cooperation aimed at improving the living standards of people in developing countries.

Ministers and delegates from the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of nations (ACP) gathered on December 10, 2012, in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, for the 7^th Summit for African Caribbean and Pacific Heads of State and Government (ACP).  Heads of government will meet December 13-14.

In his welcoming remarks, Minister Mba Mokuy said that the Summit will focus on the future of global opportunities and challenges within the ACP Group, which coincides with the objectives of Equatorial Guinea’s development plan, Horizon 2020, which is a “a systematic and progressive engine for our country’s politics with the outside world.”

Calling his country’s hosting of the meeting part of a foreign policy characterized by greater openness to the rest of the world, he said, “Equatorial Guinea is committed to the development of south-south cooperation.  This can in no way be a substitute for traditional north-south cooperation, but an important complement to it” and “an essential axis of solidarity among countries of the south.”

He urged ACP nations to use solidarity to benefit their people. “Economic difficulties on a global scale add to the permanent urgency of designing and putting into practice appropriate development policies and strategies,” he said.

He also called on the group to “take decisions and adopt resolutions that lead to greater development at the service of our people.” He said that ACP countries are always affected by decisions taken at the international level, and must take the lead to help their people “move out of poverty and enjoy dignified and secure employment, social protection, greater purchasing power, and access to basic daily necessities like drinking water, decent housing, electrical power, and education.”

Mba Mokuy said that developing countries deserved greater representation on the United Nations Security Council, and reminded the meeting that Africa had requested two permanent seats.

This is the first time that Equatorial Guinea has hosted the ACP Summit. Over the past two years, Malabo has hosted events such as the African Union Summit, African-South America Forum, 9^th Leon H. Sullivan Summit, among others in Sipopo.

Equatorial Guinea Expands Telecommunications Development

Government participates in international telecommunications project reaching from Africa Coast to Europe

MALABO, Equatorial Guinea – December 6, 2012 – The Government of Equatorial Guinea will expand its broadband connectivity by participating in the implementation of the international Africa Coast to Europe Project (ACE), a fiber optic cable that will connect 21 countries from South Africa to France.

Equatorial Guinea’s economic capital, Bata, will serve as one of the cable’s key connection points. The Ministry of Transportation, Technology, Postal Services andTelecommunications will officially oversee the implementation of the control center for the cable, which will be effective by December 6, 2013. 

The control center in Equatorial Guinea will be located at the site of the public Telecommunication Infrastructures Manager of Equatorial Guinea (GITGE), the country’s first telecommunications infrastructure company, which was launched in July 2012.

“Equatorial Guinea is working to expand its broadband connectivity,” said Carmelo Martin Modu, Secretary of State for Technology and Telecommunications. “We believe that through our participation in the ASE project, we will continue to reduce the digital divide that exists in our country and improve our communications’ quality and reach.”

Through projects such as ASE and CITGE, Equatorial Guinea has worked to advance their telecommunications infrastructure as an overall effort to promote socioeconomic development throughout the nation and reach the Horizon 2020 development goals.

Foreign Minister of Equatorial Guinea Concludes Productive Meetings in Spain

Nations sign civil aviation accord, set stage for closer ties.

Equatorial Guinea Foreign Minister Agapito Mba Mokuy completed a productive visit to Spain last week that concluded with a new bilateral civil aviation agreement and new possibilities to improve economic and political relations.

Mba Mokuy met with his Spanish counterpart, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation José Manuel García-Margallo, as well as with the Spain’s leading business organization, the Confederation of Spanish Business Organizations (CEOE), and visited Spanish cultural institutions.

In a statement, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Equatorial Guinea “a critical partner" to Spain and pledged to maintain a "critical, constructive and ongoing dialogue" with its former colony.

  

Garcia-Margallo and Mba Mokuy signed a new civil aviation agreement that more than doubles the number of flights each week between Madrid and Malabo for both Iberia Airlines and the Equatoguinean national carrier, Ceiba Intercontinental. Spanish government sources described the terms of the new agreement as "completely open and flexible," allowing the designated airlines of both countries to freely select flight destinations and intermediate stops.

Garcia-Magallo inquired about the domestic political situation in Equatorial Guinea and stressed that "it is necessary to deepen the democratic mechanisms” in order to build strong and developed societies.

The two ministers discussed the "close relations" between the countries in development programs between the two countries and reiterated their desire to strengthen them, particularly in traditional priority areas for Spain such as health, education, and strengthening the rule of law, and new areas such as the modernization of public administration, strengthening civil society and cultural cooperation.

The two governments are studying ways to facilitate travel between the countries. Mba Mokuy also said that within the next few months, “an agreement could be signed to eliminate official visas, and we can then look for ways to speed up the rest of the cases.”

In his meeting with CEOE, Mba Mokuy reminded his audience that the two countries have a bilateral investment treaty in force, and he encouraged Spanish companies to do more business in Equatorial Guinea. He also announced that Banco Santander has been invited to establish locations in Equatorial Guinea. He said it "would be of great help to Spanish businessmen working in our country have a Spanish bank."

"The political stability and economic progress achieved [in Equatorial Guinea] can serve as a platform for Spanish companies to boost investment in the country and from there gain access to the African continent," he added.