Ugandan President Yoweri Kaguta Museveni has Wednesday left for South Africa to attend the World Economic Forum on Friday to be hosted in Cape Town.
The Forum’s theme (Shaping Inclusive Growth and Shared Futures in the Fourth Industrial Revolution), is timely.
“I have left for Cape Town, South Africa, where I will join other leaders for the 28th World Economic Forum on Africa. The Forum’s theme (Shaping Inclusive Growth and Shared Futures in the Fourth Industrial Revolution), is timely,” Museveni announced on his Facebook page.
The Forum however, is being hosted at a critical time when South African government is grappling with xenophobic riots across the country and so far five foreigners- all blacks have already been killed.
Against that backdrop some African leaders have cancelled their invitation at the last minute as a away of expressing distress to what is happening in the country and in the face of ongoing looting and burning of small businesses in that country owned largely by African immigrants.
The chairman of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat has condemned the attacks, which have seen scores of people arrested in Johannesburg and the capital Pretoria.
Reports said Zambia had also cancelled a friendly football match with South Africa’s national men’s team Bafana Bafana scheduled for March.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari instructed his foreign affairs minister to summon South Africa’s high commissioner to Nigeria over the violence.
In a statement on Tuesday, the African Union Commission’s Faki called for “immediate steps to protect the lives of people and their property, ensure that all perpetrators are brought to account for their acts, and that justice be done to those who suffered economic and other losses.”
“The chairperson reiterates the African Union’s Commission continued commitment to support the South African government in addressing the root causes that led to these despicable acts, in order to promote peace and stability, within the framework of the African Union’s longstanding principles of continental solidarity,” his spokeswoman Ebba Kalondo said.
About World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum(WEF) is an independent and impartial International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.
Its Annual Meeting is the only yearly gathering that brings together leaders of global society and which aims to be open and inclusive.
This year, the programme of the African based Forum scheduled from September 4 to 6, 2019 in Cape Town, South Africa, aims to tackle the main geopolitical, climate change and county financial issues altering Africa’s self-empowerment and development by focusing on how to scale up the transformation of regional architecture related to institutions, infrastructure, integration, industrialization and innovation. Under the theme: “Shaping Inclusive Growth and Shared Futures in the Fourth Industrial Revolution”, the 28th World Economic Forum on Africa will convene more than 1,000 regional and global leaders from politics, business, civil society and academia to shape regional and industry agendas in the year ahead.
Museveni was flanked by his wife Janet Kataha Museveni.