H.E. Mr. Mohammed Belaoura:

Just a few words on two elements. The first element is that, as the Deputy rightly mentioned, Africa has very young people. This has to be valorised and used in the right direction. We can have a very young population and still have huge challenges for the population, such as candidates for immigration and other things. The investment in infrastructure and education is the key word. African countries, in general, have an average of less than 25% of people in schools, scolarisation, I think, is the right word. We need to improve this figure and these numbers.

In Algeria, education has been for a long time, for decades, the first item in the Government budget, even before national defence. We now have, out of a population of 48 million, 13 million students, of whom 3 million go to universities. This is very important to give opportunity to the other sectors to benefit from education, a well-trained population and skilled young people. Education is the key word but this level of educational development cannot be reached unless we can ensure there is, in parallel, rural development. In Africa, mainly in the rural areas, there are a lot of issues linked to water, housing and access to the villages. Hundreds of thousands of villages are lacking basic amenities and are lacking schools. This is of utmost importance.

Another thing is the green energy, of course, and the renewable energy. Africa has huge potential in that. We see this, especially in the Sahel region. The Algerian territory is 2.4 million sq. km. in area of which 1.8 million sq. km is like the Sahara, where out of 365 days we have 330 or 340 days of sun. That has huge potential. Yet, this needs huge investment to bring a benefit to the whole area, from Senegal to Sudan, and there are of course 13 countries in the area. There is big potential but we still need partners. That is what I referred to earlier, ownership of African needs. It is very important for Africans to have the opportunity to expand their needs and then they can invest in those areas.