“In a turbulent world, it is up to us Africans to take in hand the instruments of our health sovereignty. We have all the human resources to do so: African doctors, paramedics, biologists and researchers fill Western hospitals, universities and research laboratories,” said Bensaid at the opening of FAAPA’s 8th General Assembly, held under the theme “African News Agencies as a Vehicle for Promoting the Continent’s Health Sovereignty”
These resources are waiting for their home countries to offer them the conditions to exercise their vocation, he added, noting that this is “the ambition of the African Academy of Health Sciences (AAHS), launched last November in Dakhla, by the Mohammed VI Foundation for Science and Health.”
The Minister also noted that the Academy is considered as “a milestone and the foundation of our African ambition to bring together in Dakhla, the Sahel’s window on the Atlantic, the African human skills of today and tomorrow, to build the multidimensional continental sovereignty to which we all aspire.”
In this regard, the minister stressed that “there is no sovereignty with health delegated to others,” noting that the integrated health model, as desired by His Majesty King Mohammed VI for the Continent, cannot exist and be consolidated without training, exchanges and synergies between African nations.
In this respect, Bensaid highlighted the “decisive” role of African press agencies in connecting this collective dynamic that is “our continent, full of potential””
In this context of African emergence on the world stage, the role of communication, media, journalism and the press is fundamental, he added.
“Long monopolized by external discourses on Africa, we are now able to write our vision on ourselves. This reappropriation of the word is as important as the reappropriation of oceanic space, or of our independent presence on the global stage,” said Bensaid.
In line with the High Vision of His Majesty King Mohammed VI, Morocco aims to be, more than ever, a player in African sovereignty, and a window for African partners, he continued, The continent’s most precious asset is its youth, increasingly educated, increasingly connected and now eager to express their own views, and no longer content to be merely consumers of foreign media.
Referring to the role of African press agencies in consolidating the continent’s sovereignty, the minister noted that FAAPA had grown over the years to include a growing number of members, as well as observers representing press agencies in partner areas (the Mediterranean, Latin America, Asia-Pacific, the Islamic world).
“This undeniable success confirms our conviction that the alliance of African and Atlantic press agencies will give our peoples and nations greater strength and weight on the international stage.”
“Ten years ago, the Atlantic Federation of African Press Agencies was founded in Casablanca. The FAAPA name alone is a symbol and a banner, that of an Africa emancipated from its imaginary fetters, which is appropriating what rightfully belongs to it, namely its oceanic horizon, its sovereign presence in maritime globalization, on its own terms, and according to its values, history and aspirations,” he added.
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