16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the ... - Development

16th Meeting of Senior Fellowships Officers of the United Nations System and Host Country Agencies
14. As such, he was on familiar territory of mutual affirmation and common search for a
just international economic system which would enable the integration of workable
ideas and programmes through harmonization of policies, legal framework, gender
mainstreaming, regulatory infrastructure and environmental protection. He noted that
faces and positions of actors might have changed but constructive collaboration for a
new beginning, for a peaceful, productive and prosperous world, was continuing in all
fronts.
15. Dr. Gurirab affirmed that he had been looking forward to the reunion on United Nations
fellowships at the UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. He took the opportunity
to convey to all the warm greetings and best wishes from his compatriots and fellow
Parliamentarians. From his youthful days he had met in power corridors of world’s assemblies
and negotiation retreats inspiring people who had been so generous with their
time, instructive with their wisdom and helpful in getting him to better understand
world politics, multilateralism and human security.
16. Dr. Gurirab recounted his own experience when Namibia’s independence on 21 March
1990 placed him on an ever moving and changing trajectory of duties as Foreign Minister,
Prime Minister and currently Speaker, with intervals attached to it for a year-long
Presidency of the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly and simultaneously Presidency
of the UN Security Council during Namibia’s turn. He had had many heroes,
heroines and guardian angels in this process whom he thanked for enlightenment, opportunity
and privilege.
17. Turning to the agenda item South-South Cooperation and its Impact on Training and
Fellowships, he recalled that another name for South used to be the Third World or
alternatively Developing Countries. That included a part of the world where he was
born, namely, Africa and particularly Namibia.
18. Referring to his past, he revealed that between 1962 and 1989 he had been legally unable
to set foot on the soil of his motherland, Namibia, because of illegality and persecution by
the apartheid oppressor. Those years, his youth, studies and exposure as freedom fighter
made him a global citizen. It was truly a rewarding journey which broadened his perspectives
on his own life and times, belonging to all and excluding none. He affirmed that he
was a Southerner but equally a Northerner by training and experience.
19. That journey beyond Namibia, which began in 1962, assumed a special meaning
for him in Tanzania. His first encounter with the idea of South-South cooperation
took place at the Afro-Asian People’s Solidarity Conference (AAPSO)
which brought together delegates from the South in the small northeastern town
of Moshi, Tanzania, in May 1963. He met there statesmen, revolutionaries and
catalysts for change and reconstruction who spoke in unison about decolonization,
mutual support and self-determination.
20. Within a couple of weeks after that extraordinary experience at Moshi and on the very
eve of the creation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), now African Union, he