Chambas to get German Africa Award 2010

Ghanaian top diplomat Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas will be honoured with the prestigious German Africa Award by the German Africa Foundation. Dr. Chambas will receive the Award on 6th October 2010 in Berlin by the German Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Guido Westerwelle. Dr. Chambas had been serving as Executive Secretary and President of the ECOWAS Commission from 2002 until 2010. Currently he is General Secretary of the ACP Group of States based in Brussels.

The German Africa Award 2010 will be presented to Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas because of his outstanding efforts for peace, stability and regional integration in West Africa.

«Under the leadership of Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas, ECOWAS became the most modern and most effective regional organisation in Africa, despite of very difficult political and economic conditions in the region. ECOWAS is the main pillar of peace, political stability and economic development in the West African region», says State Secretary (ret.) Dr. Dr. Volkmar Koehler, president of the independent jury for the German Africa Award 2010.

«Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas is an outstanding and inspiring personality who stands for African success stories. With his principle of ‘African solutions for African problems’, he represents a generation of modern, self-confident and ambitious Africans who are the future of this proud and magnificent continent. Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas made West Africa a better place and we congratulate him for his achievements which we are proud to honour with the German Africa Award 2010», says, Prof. Dr. Karl-Heinz Horhues, president of the German Africa Foundation.

The German Africa Foundation is an independent political foundation across all party lines in the German Federal Parliament. The foundation strives for a better understanding between Germany and the peoples and people of Africa, fostering a real partnership at eye level. The members of the foundation who are mainly German parlamentarians seek to strengthen ties to Africa on all levels of society, especially by enhancing the image of Africa as a modern and rising continent.

Since 1993, the German Africa Foundation awards the prestigous German Africa Award to outstanding African personalities who stand for peace, stability, human rights, social and economic development across the continent. Each year, the German Africa Award is presented by one of the top political leaders in Germany. Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas is the second Ghanaian to receive the award, after the late Dr. Francis Appiah (APRM Ghana governing council) who was given the award in 2007 by German Federal Chancellor Dr. Angela Merkel.

Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas who happily aggreed to accept the German Africa Award will travel to Germany during the first week of October 2010 in order to attend the festive ceremony with the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Guido Westerwelle, and to meet high ranking German politicians, including Federal President Christian Wulff and Federal Minister for Economic Co-operation and Devlopment, Dirk Niebel.

Currently, a team of the German Africa Foundation is visiting Ghana in order to produce a film on Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas.