First Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Sport (4-8 June, 2007)

The first Session of the African Union Conference of Ministers of Sport took place from the 4th till the 8th June 2007 at the headquarters of the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, under the chairmanship of the AU Commissioner for Social Affairs, Adv. Bience Gawanas.

The AU Conference of Ministers of Sport is aimed at mobilising and harmonizing programmes towards the promotion of sports for a better contribution to the development and the peace on the continent. This session focused also on issues such as the Program of Activities of the International Year of African Football (IYoAF) and the Activities planned in relation with the World Cup 2010.

African sports celebrities attended the opening ceremony: Mr Abdelmalek Sellal, Chairperson of the Advisory Committee on Sport, Mr Lamine Diack, President, International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), keynote speaker of the conference, Mr Sonstone Kashiba, Secretary General of the Supreme Council for Sport in Africa (SCSA), Mr Hamad Kalkaba Malboum, President of the Confederation of African Athletics, General Lassana Palenfo, President of the Association of National Olympic Committees in Africa (ANOCA).

During the session, Bience Gawanas, Commissioner for social affairs, pointed out that this first AU Conference of Ministers of Sport ushers in a new era of coordinated policy development in the domain of sport and then that the Conference is expected to sharpen their focus by coordinating efforts of the AU Commission and AU Member States and the sport movement.

Mr Abdelmalek Sellal, Chairperson of the Advisory Committee on Sport, invited all the family of African Sport to the 9th All-Africa Games and the 2nd Afro-Asia Games, which will take place in Algeria. Those two main African events will be a real celebration of the youth and will contribute to the launch of a new dynamism of the sports on the continent according to him.

The next conference will take place in 2008 in Ghana.

Speeches addressed during the opening ceremony :

• Address by Adv. Bience Gawanas, Commissioner for Social Affaires, the African Union
• Address by the SCSA Secretary General, H.E. Sonstone Y. Kashiba
• Address by General Lassana Palenfo, ANOCA President
• Mr Abdelmalek Sellal, Ministry, representative of Algeria
• Mr Lamine Diack, International Association of Athletics Federations

Read the AU press release