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STATEMENT BY

HON NETTY BALDEH

ACP CO-PRESIDENT OF THE ACP-EU JOINT PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY

at the opening ceremony of the

32ND SESSION OF THE ACP-EU JOINT PARLIAMENTARY ASSEMBLY

Kenyatta International Conference Centre

Nairobi,

19 December 2016 STATEMENT BY HON. NETTY BALDEH, ACP CO-PRESIDENT OF THE ACP-EU JOINT PARLIAMENT AT THE 32ND SESSION OF THE ASSEMBLY, NAIROBI, KENYA, 19 DECEBER 2016

 H.E. Mr. , President of the Republic of Kenya

 Hon. Justin Muturi President of the National Assembly of Kenya

 Hon. Ekwe Ethuro, President of the

 Co-Presidents of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Hon. Louis Michel

 Hon. Lindsay F.P. Grant, President-in-Office of the ACP Council,

 Hon. Lukas Parizek President-in-Office of the EU Council

 Hon. Members of the JPA

 Co-Secretaries-General of the JPA

 Distinguished invited guests

It is an honour for me personally and on behalf of the ACP Parliamentary Assembly to have this privilege of addressing you on this occasion.

Allow me, first of all, to thank you, President Kenyatta, for having spared the time from your affairs of State to grace our Assembly with your presence. Through you, I would like to thank the Government, Parliament, and people of Kenya for having offered to host this session of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. The warmth and hospitality of the Kenyan people is well known and it is good when we have the opportunity to experience this for ourselves.

Page 1 Our gratitude also go to the Speaker of the Parliament and his staff for all the arrangements they have made for our convenience and working conditions and for their collaboration in preparations for this meeting. It would be remiss of me not to recognise the tireless efforts in this instance and good working relationship that we have had with Kenya’s representatives to the JPA, Hon. Joyce Laboso, a former Co-President of this Joint Parliamentary Assembly and Senator Kembi-Gitura.

I also wish to pay tribute to the Kenyan Government and its people for the hard-fought peace and political stability that this country enjoys despite internal and external challenges it has faced in the past, and the constant menace of terrorism.

Mr. President,

The ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly is the visible manifestation of partnership, consultation and political dialogue between the peoples of the ACP States and the European Union. The Assembly provides a forum for elected representatives to scrutinise, and express their views on, the conduct of the ACP-EU Partnership. The range of themes on the agenda of this session encompasses pertinent political, social and economic issues that collectively and individually confront us.

Ultimately, our discussions are about people, not abstract themes or statistics, but concern humanity in general. The debate on the impact of hurricane Matthew on Haiti is a good case in point. On October 4, 2016, hurricane Matthew hit Haiti leaving widespread damage, destroyed around 200,000 homes and left 1.4 million people in need of humanitarian aid. Monetary damage was estimated at US$1.89 billion.

Page 2 As is true for every such case, we cannot pretend that we can resolve all the challenges that the country faces, but can we assist them with the means to start over according to what they themselves are able to accomplish.

Despite all the difficulties occasioned by the hurricane, Presidential elections were held in a largely peaceful environment on 27 October, in which Mr. Jovenel Moïse won the election in the first round with more than 50% of the vote. We wish the President success for the recovery and development of his country.

The post-electoral situation in Gabon, which is the subject of a resolution, is informed by concern for the political stability of the country after its Presidential elections held in August 2016. This Assembly has in the past adopted Resolutions on the impact of electoral systems and processes on the strengthening of democracy. We shall also have a debate on Constitutional limits on Presidential terms, which is a difficult subject, and I think that the views on the ACP and EU sides may not necessarily coincide, and for the most part, it is due to misunderstandings of Constitutional systems and electoral laws and the fundamental issues at play in several ACP States, which are still evolving.

Mr. President, Hon. Members,

I personally, and my colleagues here, are concerned about the unfortunate turn of events in my country the Gambia following Presidential elections held on 1 December 2016. I hope that with the assistance and efforts of Heads of State from the region, the situation will be resolved peacefully to avoid loss of lives and political instability in the country.

Page 3 Moving on to social and economic issues, one of the topics is challenges for family farming and small scale agriculture in ACP states. However, this is an issue that is equally relevant to the EU.

A European Parliament policy report stated that family farms are main contributors to food security, providing an uninterrupted supply of high quality diverse produce. They also enhance the vitality of the rural economy.

The situation is equally true for ACP family farms, especially in terms of access to farming resources such as land and capital, and access to markets. Access to financial capital, especially via formal channels, is often expensive for small farmers, who are unwilling to risk their land as collateral.

Mr. President,

This Assembly is strongly committed to the attainment of the sustainable development goals and the importance of domestic resource mobilisation to finance programmes for the realisation of the goals. It is for this reason that we are concerned about the impact of illicit financial flows on development finance.

Illicit financial flows in ACP and EU States may serve to conceal illegal activities and evade taxes. Because of the increased integration of financial markets, their economic and political significance of illicit financial flows has grown. Transnational corporations are well known for aggressive tax avoidance which may not necessarily be illegal, they exploit regulatory weaknesses in national legal systems and lead to considerable losses in public revenues in the countries hosting the corporate groups concerned. The European Commission recently ruled that mobile phone and software company, Apple, owed the Irish Government, where it is headquartered, 16 billion euros in back taxes.

Page 4 The organisation Global Financial Integrity (GFI) estimates that in 2013, US$1.1 trillion left developing countries in illicit financial outflows.

Former South African President Thabo Mbeki, who heads the High- Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, has said that African countries need closer collaborators and coordination in efforts to deal with the problem. During a media briefing in Nairobi on September 15, 2015, President Mbeki stated that Kenya, for instance, had lost an estimated 160 billion shillings up to the year 2011 in illicit financial flows.

Mr. President, Hon. Members,

Another issue that has an impact on the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals is trade. We shall have an eminent son of Kenya, Mr. Mukhisa Kituyi, the Director-General of UNCTAD, to lead the discussions on this topic. He is on record as having stated that trade can help countries to meet the new Sustainable Development Goals. But if trade is to enable the kind of sustainable development that leaves no one behind, the right conditions must first be put in place.

The horticultural industry in Kenya, which as the subject of one of our workshops, is a good example of how trade can contribute to poverty eradication. Horticulture has continued to be one of the fastest growing sub sectors in Kenya's export sector, growing at over 7% annually, earning the country US $ 1 billion annually, employing about two million, most of them small-scale growers who constitute 80 per cent of producers. This has direct and indirect effects on the alleviation of poverty and provides higher incomes to small scale farmers.

Page 5 Mr. President,

Being in your beautiful country, we shall have an opportunity to understand better some of the development initiatives being undertaken by your Government during the debate with national authorities on role of infrastructure development in regional integration.

The East African Development Bank has stated that East Africa is the fastest growing sub-region on the continent, while its infrastructure is one of the least developed in Africa.

Infrastructure development is thus paramount for the sub-region to reach its full potential. A good example is the Single Gauge Railway project which is expected to be completed by 2017, which will connect countries in the region via oil refineries, ports and railway lines. Although the focus of the discussion is on the East African region, the principles at play are applicable to other regions, such as the Pacific and the Caribbean, where the great distances between the islands are one of the greatest challenges for regional integration.

Mr. President, Hon. Members,

I am confident that, as we have done in the past, we shall devote our considerable individual and collective experiences and knowledge to positively bear on all our deliberations. We shall not agree all the time, but even when we disagree, I hope that all the Members will have the grace to respect views contrary to their own. In the end, I hope that shall have gone some way towards fulfilling one of the objectives of this Assembly, which is to promote democratic processes through dialogue and consultation, facilitate greater understanding between the peoples of the European Union and those of the ACP States and raise public awareness of development issues.

Page 6 Mr. President, Hon. Members,

I thank you for your kind attention and I hope that we shall have a successful session.

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