OPEC, Arab Bank to fund Kasane airport project

| Wednesday April 21, 2010 00:00

 

Apart from OPEC, the Arab bank for International  Development will also fund the expansion of the airport. Matambo left  Gaborone on Sunday to attend the 21st Meeting of the SACU Council of Ministers' in Windhoek, Namibia from 19th to 20th April 2010 and an inaugural meeting of the SACU Heads of State and Government on 22nd April 2010.

The Minister will leave Namibia on April 22 and arrive in Washington DC on April 23 to attend the 2010 World Bank Group/International Monetary Fund Spring Meetings, from 24 to 26 April 2010. The Minister will proceed to Houston, Texas USA on the 26 April to participate in the Leadership Forum on Indigenisation of Baylor College of Medicine International Pediatric AIDS Initiative (BIPAI) Programmes in Africa, from 27 to 28 April 2010.

 The Minister will be accompanied by other senior government officials.The SACU meeting will among other agenda items, consider the future of SACU as a nucleus of Regional Integration, consider a pathway towards the possible establishment of an economic and monetary union amongst the five member states, redefine SACU's Vision and Mission and also launch the celebrations for 100 years of the Union's existence.

The World Bank Group/IMF Spring Meetings will discuss the 2nd phase of the governance reform process with regard to the voting reform, in which the voting shares of developing countries would be increased by at least 3 percent, and also consider reconfiguration of the two Sub-Saharan Constituencies, to form a third constituency.

BIPAI was established in 1996 with the aim of fostering international HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment, health professional education and clinical research.

The meeting targets a small group of selected African leaders; with the aim to discuss the indigenisation of BIPAI programmes in Africa. The Botswana-Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence is a public-private partnership between BIPAI in USA and the government of Botswana. Situated at Princess Marina Hospital, the Centre was officially opened on June 20, 2003. The Minister and his entourage are expected back home on May 1, 2010.