Shirley Ayorkor Botchwey, Ghana’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, participated in the Outreach Session of the G7 Foreign Ministers Meeting on November 3 and 4, 2022, in Munster, Germany.
All foreign ministers from the G7 Group, namely those from the United States, Italy, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and the European Union, were present at the meeting, which was hosted by Germany when it was the G7 President. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict and its effects on global trade, supply chains, energy, the resilience of democratic institutions in the face of emerging threats to the rule-based global order, among other pertinent issues of mutual interest, were discussed during the outreach portion of the meeting.
Ms. Botchwey was invited to discuss existential dangers posed by the unrest in the Sahel region and its wider security ramifications with the G7 Ministers along with her Kenyan counterpart and the chair of the African Union (AU). The security situation in the Great Lakes region, the Horn of Africa, and the recently-brokered peace agreement over the conflict between the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray rebels were also on the agenda. Also discussed was how to practically implement the terms of the ceasefire in order to prevent a return to the pre-conflict situation.
The stakeholders also discussed the Russia-Ukraine conflict’s effects on food and energy security as well as attempts to address the climate problem. They made proposals for how these important concerns may be addressed through coordinated action.
On the sidelines of the meeting, the Minister seized the chance to undertake private discussions with her counterparts from Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Japan, and the United States.
The Minister spoke on bilateral and multilateral cooperation at the aforementioned meetings, as well as topics of shared interest in light of Ghana’s upcoming presidency of the UN Security Council in November 2022.
In a private meeting, she discussed cooperation at the UNSC, energy, foreign direct investment, and development initiatives in Ghana with her Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi.
In a similar vein, she spoke with Melanie Joly, her Canadian counterpart, about multilateral cooperation, Canada’s Black Entrepreneurship Program, and a proposal for access to fertilizer from that country.
Source: newsthemegh.com