The Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration Minister, Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, participated in the Outreach Session of the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting held from 3rd to 4th November, 2022 in Munster, Germany.
The meeting, which was hosted by Germany under its tenure as President of the G7, had in attendance, all Foreign Ministers from the G7 Group, namely, USA, Italy, Canada, Germany, United Kingdom, Japan, France and the European Union.
Discussions during the outreach segment of the meeting centred on current geopolitical challenges, with particular reference to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its impact on world trade, supply chains, energy, resilience of democratic institutions in the face the emerging threats to the rule based global order among other pertinent issues of mutual interest.
The Minister 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 Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray Rebels and, how to practically implement the terms of the ceasefire so as 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.
The Minister took the opportunity to hold bilateral talks with her counterparts from Japan, the United States, Germany, United Kingdom and Canada on the margins of the meeting.
During the said meetings, the Minister discussed among others, matters of mutual interest, bilateral and multilateral cooperation in the light of Ghana’s tenure as Chair of the United Nations (UN) Security Council for the month of November, 2022.
The Minister also availed herself of the opportunity to brief her counterparts on the progress of the Accra Initiative and efforts to employ its collaborative security mechanism to prevent infiltration and a spill -over of the activities of terrorist elements from the Sahel into coastal states on the Gulf of Guinea.
