MINISTER FOR Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, has participated in the Outreach Session of the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting in Munster, Germany.
The Meeting was hosted by Germany under its tenure as President of the G7, from November 3 to 4, 2022.
It had in attendance, all the Foreign Ministers from the G7 Group, namely, the USA, Italy, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, France, and the European Union.
Discussions during the outreach segment of the meeting centered on current geopolitical challenges, with particular reference to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact on world trade, supply chains, and energy.
The resilience of democratic institutions in the face the emerging threats to the rule-based global order among other pertinent issues of mutual interest was also discussed.
Ms. Botchwey was invited together with her counterpart from Kenya and the Chair of the African Union (AU) to engage with the G7 Ministers on existential threats posed by the restive Sahel region and the wider security implications it presents.
Also on the agenda was the security situation in the Great Lakes region and the Horn of Africa as well as the recent peace accord brokered over the conflict between the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray Rebels and, how to practically implement the terms of the ceasefire to avoid a relapse to the status quo ante.
The stakeholders also deliberated on efforts to tackle the climate crisis, as well as food and energy security as a consequence of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and proffered suggestions on how these pertinent issues may be resolved with a concerted effort.
Ms. Botchwey took the opportunity to hold bilateral talks with her counterparts from Japan, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Canada.
During the said meetings, she discussed among others, matters of mutual interest, and bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the light of Ghana’s tenure as Chair of the United Nations (UN) Security Council for November 2022.
The minister also briefed her counterparts on the progress of the Accra Initiative and efforts to employ its collaborative security mechanism to prevent infiltration and spillover of the activities of terrorist elements from the Sahel into coastal states of the Gulf of Guinea.
BY Jamila Akweley Okertchiri