The Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI) (https://IsDBInstitute.org/) successfully conducted a series of bilateral meetings with government institutions, multilateral organizations, financial regulators, academic institutions, development agencies, and industry leaders on the sidelines of the 2026 IsDB Group Annual Meetings in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The meetings reaffirmed IsDBI’s commitment to advancing Islamic economics and finance as a catalyst for sustainable development, innovation, financial inclusion, and economic transformation across Member Countries and beyond.
The engagements covered a wide spectrum of strategic themes, including Islamic finance ecosystem development, regulatory and legislative reform, capacity building, sukuk market development, Islamic social finance, digital transformation, fintech, sustainable finance, waqf innovation, and knowledge partnerships.
Among the key engagements were discussions with representatives from the Governments of Tajikistan, Libya, Maldives, Türkiye, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone on strengthening Islamic finance ecosystems through technical assistance, regulatory enhancement, and institutional capacity development.
The Institute also met with leading international organizations and standard-setting bodies, including the Islamic Financial Services Board (IFSB), AAOIFI, the Eurasian Development Bank, and the Islamic Microfinance Development Fund (FDMI). The meetings explored avenues for collaboration in research, standards development, capacity building, and strategic initiatives aimed at broadening the global reach and impact of Islamic finance.
Several meetings focused on innovation and emerging opportunities, including discussions with Rosatom State Corporation on sustainable financing solutions and sukuk structures, Islamic Money Australia on digital Islamic banking models, and INCEIF University on Islamic social finance data, waqf tokenization, and applied research collaboration.
The Institute also explored partnerships with organizations from Brazil, Palestine, Somalia, Senegal, Djibouti, and the private sector to advance knowledge dissemination, capacity-building programs, blended Islamic finance solutions, cash waqf digitalization initiatives, and investment-related research.
Commenting on the outcomes of the engagements, the Institute’s team, led by Acting Director General, Dr. Sami Al-Suwailem, noted that the meetings reflected the growing global interest in leveraging Islamic economics and finance to address contemporary development challenges and unlock new opportunities for inclusive and sustainable growth.
The discussions generated a pipeline of follow-up initiatives, including technical assistance programs, joint research projects, capacity-building activities, policy advisory support, and collaborative knowledge-sharing platforms.
The 2026 IsDB Group Annual Meetings provided a valuable platform for strengthening existing partnerships, establishing new strategic relationships, and advancing the Institute’s mission of promoting innovative, impactful, and development-oriented Islamic economics and finance solutions worldwide.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Islamic Development Bank Institute (IsDBI).
At a time when conflict and instability are driving new displacement across the region, Ethiopia is showing that refugee protection and inclusion can go hand in hand, UN High Commissioner for Refugees Barham Salih said at the end of his first official visit to the country.
“Ethiopia is demonstrating what becomes possible when protection is matched with inclusion and opportunity – not only for refugees, but also for the communities that welcome them,” Salih said. “This leadership deserves greater international support, investment and responsibility-sharing.”
During the five-day mission, from 18 to 22 June, Salih marked World Refugee Day with refugees and host communities, and held high-level discussions with the Government of Ethiopia, the African Union, UN partners, donors and the private sector. While in Addis Ababa, he also presided over an important tripartite meeting with the governments of Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo on safe, voluntary and sustainable repatriation of refugees.
Ethiopia is one of Africa’s largest refugee-hosting countries, home to over 1.1 million refugees and asylum-seekers. Despite economic pressures, climate shocks and regional instability, the country continues to offer safety to people fleeing conflict, violence and persecution.
A key moment of the visit was the launch of the Makatet Roadmap, a national framework to include refugees in national systems and services. It aims to move beyond short-term aid by providing access to documentation, education, health care, jobs, and local services – benefiting refugees and host communities alike. The High Commissioner said the initiative was closely aligned with UNHCR’s “50 by 35” vision to reduce the number of refugees in protracted situations and dependent on humanitarian assistance by half over the next 10 years through greater inclusion, self-reliance and lasting solutions.
“The Makatet Roadmap is exactly the kind of practical, nationally-led approach the world needs more of,” Salih said. “It recognizes that refugees need more than safety; they need the chance to learn, work and rebuild their lives.”
The High Commissioner spent World Refugee Day in Ura settlement in Benishangul-Gumuz, near Sudan. He met some of the 45,000 families who have arrived from Sudan since the devastating conflict started in 2023. In Ura, newly arrived Sudanese refugees live alongside host communities and access shared services, including schools and health care, highlighting Ethiopia’s “solutions from the start” approach, which brings long-term development into emergency response as soon as refugees arrive.
Salih engaged with refugee entrepreneurs whose businesses are creating jobs, supporting families and contributing to the local economy in Ura and Addis Ababa. “The pathway is clear,” Salih said. “With the right policies and support, refugees can move from dependency to self-reliance, creating growth and opportunities for the entire community. This is Makatet in action, and a win for all.”
At Jewi camp – in Ethiopia’s Gambella region, which is home to nearly 450,000 South Sudanese refugees – the High Commissioner witnessed the impact of severe funding shortages. In recent months, thousands more from South Sudan have sought safety from renewed violence in their country, with contingencies for at least 100,000 new arrivals in Gambella this year.
“There is one doctor for 70,000 people in this camp. This is unacceptable and a moral failure,” said Salih. “Humanitarian assistance continues to save lives and needs sustained international support. We cannot afford to look away.”
UNHCR, with the Government and partners, is providing protection and life-saving assistance to those forced to flee. However, extreme funding shortfalls limit the scale and sustainability of the response.
During his visit, Salih also addressed African Union member states and underscored the inextricable link between peace and displacement and the need for stronger regional and international cooperation to address its root causes.
On his final day, Salih presided over a High-Level Ministerial Tripartite Meeting between the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Rwanda and UNHCR, where he reaffirmed UNHCR’s commitment to working with both governments to support voluntary and safe repatriation as part of the peace process. The parties signed a joint communiqué to strengthen support for voluntary returns when conditions allow and for the reintegration of refugees who choose to return.
“Displacement is only one chapter of a life. Refugees should not spend decades waiting in limbo,” Salih added. “What I’ve seen over the past week in Ethiopia shows that with investment, support and political will, durable solutions for refugees can move from aspiration to reality.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Joan Silk, Professor, School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University
Baboons are one of the most widespread of Africa’s primate groups. They range across sub-Saharan Africa and into the Arabian Peninsula.
Baboons’ ability to spread across such a vast geographic area is based on their great ecological adaptability and dietary flexibility. This enables them to flourish in a wide variety of habitats, including deserts, swamps, open grasslands, woodlands and tropical forests.
I am an evolutionary anthropologist. I rely on methods and theory from the field of behavioural ecology, which focuses on how ecological conditions and evolutionary forces shape the behaviour of organisms to enhance their chances of surviving and reproducing successfully. I am particularly interested in how studies of other species, particularly closely related ones like baboons, help us understand our own human origins.
Studies of non-human primates give us insight about how evolution may have shaped the behaviour of our ancestors and how it influences our own behaviour.
Over the last 40 years, I have been involved in long-term studies of three baboon species: chacma baboons, olive baboons, and yellow baboons. In these species, groups are composed of multiple adult males, multiple adult females, and immature animals. Males leave their birth groups near the time of sexual maturity to prevent inbreeding and may live in several different groups over the course of their lives. But females remain in their birth groups, and groups consist of multiple matrilines – sets of females connected through their maternal ancestors.
We have learned that females’ connections to their relatives shape their everyday lives and have long lasting effects on their survival and lifetime reproductive success (the number of surviving offspring they produce over the course of their lives).
Maternal training rules
Maternal kinship structures the lives of female baboons. Like other mammalian females, pregnant baboon mothers nourish their developing foetuses and buffer them from external stressors. After birth, mothers nurse their infants, carry them from place to place, and keep them warm and safe. After they are weaned at about 18 months, juveniles no longer depend on their mothers for food or transportation, but they maintain close ties to their mothers, spending much of their time near them and seeking their protection and reassurance when they are in danger.
Females sometimes intervene in support of their juvenile offspring, especially their daughters, when they are involved in conflicts. With their mothers’ help, young females can defeat all of the females that their mothers can defeat, and this leads to the formation of dominance hierarchies in which females acquire dominance rank positions just below their mothers.
As females mature and begin to reproduce themselves, they remain closely connected to their mothers and sisters. Adult females spend much more time grooming their mothers, daughters and sisters than they spend grooming others.
Close kin maintain close social bonds as long as they live together, while relationships among unrelated females tend to fluctuate in strength from year to year.
For behavioural ecologists like me, it is not only important to describe patterns of behaviour but to try to understand why evolution has favoured them. Grooming and support are forms of cooperation. When a female grooms another female, she painstakingly parts her partner’s fur and removes parasites from the skin. This is beneficial to the recipient because these parasites can cause irritation and diseases.
But the female who provides grooming gives up opportunities to forage or rest, and this may be costly.
The benefits of social bonds
Natural selection is expected to favour behaviours that increase the relative fitness of individuals, the number of surviving offspring that they produce over the course of their life time. Behaviours like grooming seem puzzling because they are costly to the actor, but beneficial to the recipient.
However, according to the theory of kin selection, altruistic interactions like grooming can evolve among genetic relatives because they share some fraction of their genes. For example, offspring acquire half of their genes from each of their parents. This may be the reason that baboons and other primates form such close ties to their kin.
It’s also important to understand how females benefit from social bonds. Several lines of evidence suggest that social bonds help females cope with stress. Glucocorticoids (like cortisol in humans) are released into the bloodstream to help animals mobilise energy to respond to acute threats, like predator attacks. But chronic activation of the stress response can be harmful.
Researchers can track glucocorticoid levels in wild primates by collecting faeces from known individuals and measuring the concentrations of metabolites (small molecules produced, used, or broken down during metabolism). Results from several studies suggest that close social bonds help females cope with stressful events in their groups and the disruption of close social bonds creates stress for females.
Females’ coping ability may have long-term consequences because sustained exposure to glucocorticoids decreases females’ life spans.
The quality of females’ social bonds may have long-term consequences too. Data from long-term studies of baboons in the Amboseli Basin, which lies along the border of Kenya and Tanzania, and in the Moremi Reserve of the Okavango Delta of Botswana, show that females that have strong and stable social connections live substantially longer than females who were more socially isolated.
It has taken decades of research by dozens of researchers at many different sites to construct this rich picture of the lives of female baboons. But there are still many questions to answer. Why are some females more sociable than others? What are the mechanisms that link social bonds and longevity? As we have learned more about the form and consequences of social bonds among baboons and other primates, we have come to appreciate the parallels between the benefit of social connections for baboons and for ourselves.
– Female baboons keep family bonds strong: research reveals the benefits – https://theconversation.com/female-baboons-keep-family-bonds-strong-research-reveals-the-benefits-284860
Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Luisa F. Escobar Alvarado, Post Doctoral researcher, Università di Torino
Few places in Africa have been as isolated and understudied as eastern Angola, particularly the highlands of the Moxico provinces, a region rich in biodiversity, culture and history. The country’s political past helps explain this isolation. Having achieved independence from Portugal in 1975 after 11 years of war, Angola descended into a civil war that lasted 27 years, one of the longest conflicts in Africa.
Since peace was established in 2002, development has concentrated in the capital Luanda, on the west coast. The east of the country has remained deeply marginalised, with limited access to basic services such as healthcare and education. Infrastructure is scarce and portions of the territory still have manylandmines.
In these areas the state’s limited presence, likely a legacy of political exclusion and geographic isolation, has allowed communities a good deal of autonomy over land and resources. This has contributed to ecological preservation but hindered social and economic development.
Isolation has also shaped something less visible: the role of fire in human survival and the woodland ecosystem.
As a team of ecologists, social scientists and political scientists from the University of Edinburgh and the University of Turin, supported by the Okavango Wilderness Project, we have been researching ties between forests and local communities in this region. Fire is one of the main tools communities use to manage the landscape – clearing fields, improving visibility, stimulating fruit growth, and aiding hunting.
In a recent paper we set out our findings about how civil war had shaped fire regimes (patterns of fire in an ecosystem) in eastern Angola. We combined analysis of satellite data on burned areas and in-depth interviews with 42 elders who lived through the conflict and still live in the area now.
An elder lost a leg to a landmine. Injuries and deaths remain common, decades after the war.Lorenza Fontana, CC BY
We found something that surprised us and that runs counter to what researchers have documented elsewhere. During the war, fire activity was lower than before or after it. In most conflict zones, war has tended to be associated with higher fire activity. This is important since how “normal” fire activity is defined determines how fire is managed.
Wartime in Angola’s highlands
Our fieldwork took place in three villages in the Moxico highlands. Dry forests and miombo woodlands grow in the high parts. Lower down there are grasslands and rivers – the headwaters of the Okavango Delta, whose waters sustain ecosystems and communities across southern Africa. This remote area is sparsely populated and the main activities are subsistence farming and honey collection.
Villagers burn fields to clear and fertilise the land. Firebreaks around the field stop the fire from spreading into the forest.Lucia Escobar Alvarado, CC BY
Local people have traditionally used fire to clear their fields and the bush for easier hunting. They use controlled burns in savannas and woodlands to reduce the risk of larger fires reaching homes, and to help keep snakes away from villages. The villagers also use smoke in harvesting honey and firewood for cooking.
Customary authorities still govern the use of natural resources.
A controlled fire burns on the edge of a village.Luisa Escobar Alvarado, CC BY
Elders told us fire was used less during the war: people were constantly displaced, relying heavily on woodland products – honey, fruits, mushrooms and wild animals – for survival. A woman said:
During the war, we had to move constantly; you built a house, stayed a month or a year, then moved again.
During interviews, residents marked on maps where different war-related events took place.Lorenza Fontana, CC BY
Armed forces strictly regulated the use of fire for cooking or hunting, since it could reveal people’s location; therefore, it was often used at night, when aircraft were not around. Forest cover was needed for safety. Careless use could result in harsh punishment and even death. One respondent told us:
If you burned, that was a crime! You would get whipped!
Respondents said that during the war, forested areas expanded and got denser.
Many elder women are remarkably skilled at re-enacting memories of the war.Lorenza Fontana, CC BY
Our spatial analyses of burned areas confirmed that fire decreased by an average of 36% during the war compared with the average after the war (2003 to 2018), with sharper declines in some periods. There was a 46% drop between 1991 and 1992, possibly linked to renewed violence after Unita (one of the parties in the civil war) rejected the Bicesse Accords election results. After the war ended in 2002, burned area rose 60% above the wartime average.
Fire and conflict
The case of eastern Angola shows some interesting patterns which can bring a new perspective to the relationship between fire regimes and armed conflict.
Our study shows the opposite: a marked decrease in fire activity during the conflict, followed by a sharp postwar recovery.
Fire and war.Luisa Escobar Alvarado
This drastic increase was likely driven by returning populations, restored livelihood practices and expanded market connections, all likely exacerbated by natural fuel accumulated during years of suppressed burning.
We read it not as an anomaly but as a return to a peacetime baseline. We suggest that it was the wartime suppression of burning that was exceptional.
This distinction is important not only for academic debates on human-fire interactions but also for fire governance and policy in the region. Taking the low-burning years of the war period as the baseline fire regime can lead to management strategies that focus on suppression, like banning early controlled burning. These can in turn disrupt fire-dependent livelihoods, overlook longer-term historical patterns, and promote narratives that are not necessarily grounded in local ecological or socioeconomic realities.
Abandoned tanks and war remnants remain scattered across landscapes.Luisa Escobar Alvarado, CC BY
The effects of the war extended well beyond its end in 2002. Before the conflict, fire was managed collectively through long-standing community traditions. Wartime restrictions on burning, together with the disruption caused by the conflict, eroded these practices and the intergenerational knowledge that sustained them. As a result, fire use today is largely shaped by individual decisions rather than coordinated community management.
A woman demonstrates how to set an early dry-season fire in the savanna.Lorenza Fontana, CC BY
Managing fire in context
This case carries several implications: war can reshape fire regimes in ways current literature has overlooked, and fire itself is still too often framed as a danger or disaster, rather than a crucial tool for rural communities. Managing fire in this landscape calls for approaches that fit local realities, recognising fire as a socio-political process as much as an environmental one, and placing local livelihoods at the centre of governance.
The highlands of Moxico may represent an extreme case, but they are a reminder that war’s consequences for landscapes and livelihoods can be complex, unexpected and long-lasting – especially for marginalised groups.
Author’s note on photos: before we take pictures with people we always ask for their consent, and we ask if we can share those pictures in different places. We obtain oral consent since most of the people we work with don’t read or write.
– Angola’s long war changed the way farmers used fire – why it matters – https://theconversation.com/angolas-long-war-changed-the-way-farmers-used-fire-why-it-matters-285616
Nigeria’s mining sector is entering a new phase of growth as regulatory reforms, downstream investments and international partnerships strengthen investor confidence in one of Africa’s largest untapped mineral markets. The country’s solid minerals sector has secured approximately $3 billion in investments over the past three years, reflecting growing investor confidence as the West African nation seeks to bridge the financing gap hindering large-scale mining development.
The investment milestone comes as Nigeria deepens engagement with investors to unlock its estimated $750 billion in untapped mineral resources. The country is targeting an increase in mining’s contribution to GDP to 10%, creating lucrative investment opportunities for global mining industry players.
These developments come as African Mining Week (AMW) 2026 – Africa’s Most Influential Mining Conference, taking place in Cape Town from October 14-16 – prepares to showcase Nigeria’s expanding project pipeline and investment opportunities. Through dedicated country sessions, project showcases and executive networking, the event will connect international investors with Nigerian policymakers, mining companies and service providers driving the country’s mining transformation.
Nigeria’s expanding investment pipeline is a testament to its drive to strengthen partnerships. In June 2026, indigenous company Romulus Mining announced plans to increase investments across its gold and lithium portfolio from approximately $50 million to $150 million over the next three years, underscoring growing private sector confidence in the country’s mining outlook.
A partnership deal signed with Turkey in May 2026 is expected to support cooperation in geological exploration, mining technologies, digitalization and capacity building, while creating new opportunities for Turkish investment and technical expertise across Nigeria’s mining value chain.
Meanwhile, the advancement of several downstream projects – including a $600 million lithium processing facility in Nasarawa State and a $200 million lithium processing plant in Abuja – underscores Nigeria’s commitment to boosting mineral production and supporting industrialization.
Amid these developments, AMW 2026 provides a timely platform for investors seeking to capitalize on one of Africa’s most promising mining markets. The event will facilitate strategic partnerships that support exploration, mineral processing and long-term industry growth, reinforcing Nigeria’s ambition to develop a $1 billion economy by 2030 on the back of its mining industry.
Women must play a central role in National Dialogue process
Deputy Minister in the Presidency for Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities, Mmapaseka Steve Letsike, has called for women to play a central role in South Africa’s National Dialogue process.
Addressing the Women’s Sector National Dialogue Preparatory Summit on Wednesday, Letsike said the dialogue offered an opportunity to move beyond legal guarantees of equality and focus on whether institutions, the economy and society were delivering meaningful change in women’s daily lives.
“This year marks the 70th anniversary of the historic Women’s March of 1956 and 30 years since South Africans adopted the Constitution,” she said.
“Our generation has the responsibility to carry that work forward by ensuring that equality is not simply protected in law, but experienced in the daily lives of women and girls.”
Letsike said South Africa had no shortage of women’s voices in public life, but institutions had often failed to respond adequately to the challenges women consistently highlighted.
She pointed to continued high levels of unemployment and poverty among women, the vulnerability of female-headed households, the burden of unpaid care work and ongoing gender-based violence as evidence that gender equality remains unfinished business.
“These are not separate challenges. They are deeply connected,” she said.
The Deputy Minister argued that the National Dialogue should examine whether existing systems need to be redesigned to make gender mainstreaming a permanent feature of government and economic planning.
She raised questions about how public transport, childcare systems, digital transformation and local economic development could be structured around the realities faced by women, including entrepreneurs, informal traders, farm workers and women with disabilities. “These are not simply women’s questions. They are nation-building questions,” she said.
Letsike also urged participants to consider emerging challenges, including artificial intelligence, climate change, declining trust in democratic institutions and growing attacks on the rights of women and other marginalised groups.
She cited international examples, including Uruguay’s care economy reforms, Spain’s integrated approach to gender-based violence and Iceland’s accountability measures on equality, while stressing that South Africa would need solutions tailored to its own history and constitutional framework.
The Women’s Sector National Dialogue Preparatory Summit forms part of broader consultations feeding into South Africa’s National Dialogue process, which aims to reflect on the country’s democratic progress and future direction.
Letsike said women should participate in the process not merely as stakeholders seeking recognition but as partners in shaping the country’s future.
“The success of the National Dialogue will not ultimately be measured by the conversations we have, but by the institutions we strengthen, the opportunities we create, and the extent to which every woman, every young person and every person with a disability can experience the full promise of our constitutional democracy,” she said. – SAnews.gov.za
KZN correctional services commissioner in court on fraud, money laundering charges
KwaZulu-Natal Regional Commissioner of the Department of Correctional Services, Mnikelwa Nxele, has appeared in the Pietermaritzburg Magistrates’ Court on charges of fraud and money laundering following his arrest by the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC).
“His arrest emanates from a referral to the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (DPCI), [commonly known as the Hawks], after investigations were conducted on evidence that was provided by Angelo Agrizzi during the State Capture Commission involving BOSASA contracts, valued at approximately R20 million,” IDAC spokesperson Henry Mamothame explained.
According to the IDAC, Nxele allegedly received bribes of approximately R100 000 per month while he was the Chairperson of the Special Bid Adjudication Committee in KZN.
“It is alleged that fraudulent financial activities were conducted through Zogoba Trust, which he registered and used to conceal the movement of funds, as well as the assets accumulated through criminality,” Mamothame said.
“The money was allegedly utilised to purchase properties and for gambling in various casinos around the country. He is further accused of failing to make his financial disclosure with the Department of Public Service and Administration,” Mamothame said.
Nxele was granted bail of R50 000, and the case was postponed to 16 September 2026. – SAnews.gov.za
Learner leaders called to champion democracy, inclusion and school safety
Basic Education Minister Siviwe Gwarube has called on learner leaders from across South Africa to embrace their role as custodians of democracy, champions of safe and inclusive schools, and leaders capable of shaping the future of education and society.
Addressing the 2026 National Learner Leadership Summit on Wednesday in Benoni, Ekurhuleni, Minister Gwarube reflected on the significance of South Africa commemorating 50 years since the 1976 Soweto Uprising and challenged learner leaders to honour that legacy through active leadership, service and civic participation.
The summit held under the theme “Born of Resilience, Driven by Purpose: Leading the Future of Learning,” brought together learner leaders from all nine provinces, government representatives, development partners, civil society organisations and education stakeholders to strengthen learner voice, democratic participation and leadership within the education sector.
In her address, Minister Gwarube noted that while the challenges facing today’s generation differ from those confronted by the youth of 1976, they remain equally urgent.
These include bullying, violence, gender-based violence, substance abuse, cyberbullying, misinformation, mental health challenges and growing uncertainty about the future. She urged learner leaders to become agents of positive change within their schools and communities.
A key message emerging from the Summit was that leadership begins with service. Learner leaders were encouraged to use their influence to protect vulnerable learners, promote inclusion and build school environments where every learner feels safe, respected and valued.
The Minister emphasised that the true measure of leadership is not status or popularity, but the ability to uplift others and strengthen communities.
The Department further reaffirmed its commitment to strengthening school safety through initiatives such as the Safe Schools Protocol and partnerships with the South African Police Service.
Delegates heard that creating safer schools requires more than policies and programmes; it requires a culture of respect, accountability, empathy and care, led by learners themselves.
The Summit also highlighted the importance of democratic participation and active citizenship as fundamental pillars of learner leadership.
Delivering a keynote address on the importance of voting as a constitutional right and civic responsibility, the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of South Africa (IEC), Mosotho Moepya, reminded learner leaders that democracy must be renewed and protected by every generation.
Drawing on the lessons of South Africa’s democratic journey, Moepya encouraged young people to reject apathy and become ambassadors for democratic participation, information integrity and responsible citizenship within their schools and communities.
Quoting the late former President Nelson Mandela, Moepya reminded delegates that, “An election is not just about choosing leaders; it is a celebration of our hard-won freedom and a powerful declaration that we are the masters of our own destiny.”
Delegates were reminded that many of the issues affecting communities, including access to services, safety, infrastructure and opportunities for young people, are influenced by democratic participation and accountable governance.
Learner leaders were therefore encouraged to see a direct connection between the leadership they exercise within schools today and the broader leadership responsibilities they may assume in society tomorrow.
Gwarube noted that the freedoms enjoyed by young South Africans today were secured through the courage and sacrifices of previous generations and must be protected through responsible citizenship and active participation in democratic processes.
“The youth of 1976 fought for access to education, dignity and democratic freedoms. The responsibility of today’s generation is to protect those gains, strengthen democratic participation, reject bullying and violence, champion inclusion, and use their voices to shape a better future.
“The future of South Africa is already here, and it is represented by the young leaders gathered at this Summit,” Gwarube said.
The department expressed its appreciation to all partners who contributed to the success of the summit, including the Electoral Commission of South Africa, UNICEF, the National Education Collaboration Trust (NECT), the Agape Youth Movement, provincial education departments, educators, school governing bodies and learner leadership structures from across the country.
The department added that the continued support strengthens efforts to develop a generation of active citizens, ethical leaders and engaged learners committed to building a better South Africa. – SAnews.gov.za
HM Sultan Haitham bin Tarik of Oman met on Wednesday with HE Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani.
At the outset of the meeting, HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs conveyed the greetings of HH the Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani to HM Sultan of Oman, along with His Highness’s wishes for His Majesty’s continued health and happiness, and for the Omani people’s continued progress and prosperity.
For his part, HM the Sultan of Oman entrusted HE the Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs to convey his greetings to HH the Amir, wishing His Highness continued health and happiness, and the Qatari people further development and growth.
During the meeting, they discussed bilateral cooperation relations and ways to support and strengthen them in various fields to serve their common interests and benefit their peoples.
They also discussed the latest regional developments, particularly the diplomatic efforts to enhance security and stability in the region, following the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the United States of America and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
HE Minister of State for International Cooperation Dr. Maryam bint Ali bin Nasser Al Misnad, met on Wednesday with HE Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to the State of Qatar, Muhammad Amir.
During the meeting, they discussed cooperation relations between the two countries and ways to support and enhance them, in addition to several topics of mutual interest.
