UNCLAS COTONOU 000123

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR AF/W ACOOK
LONDON FOR PETER LORD
PARIS FOR BKANEDA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PREL BN
SUBJECT: BENIN: GOB HOLDS AMBASSADORS CONFERENCE TO BOOST DIPLOMACY


1. SUMMARY: On the personal initiative of President Yayi, the GOB
held a three-day Ambassadors Conference, February 26-28, the second
of its kind since 1981, to revitalize Beninese diplomacy. The event
gathered over two-hundred officials and diplomats, including 31
Beninese ambassadors accredited to countries all over the world.
Deliberations focused on the assessment of Beninese diplomacy so far
and ways to improve and bring it into line with President Yayi's
economic agenda. In his opening remarks, Yayi called for a more
proactive and result-oriented diplomacy to achieve economic
progress. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, African Integration,
Francophonie and the Beninese Diaspora, Jean Marie Ehouzou,
contended that more Beninese diplomats need to be appointed to
international organizations and encouraged increased participation
of the Beninese diaspora in national economic efforts. END SUMMARY.


2. During the February 26 opening ceremony of the Ambassadors
Conference, President Yayi said that Beninese diplomacy had been
successful since the country embraced democracy in 1990. However, he
said that he wanted to reorient Beninese diplomacy towards
facilitating international markets for Beninese exports.


3. In his opening address, the Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Jean-Marie Ehouzou, took stock of Beninese diplomacy since the 1990
National Conference. He expressed satisfaction at Benin's diplomatic
achievements, citing the visits of US president George Bush
(February 2008), and Finish President Tarja Halonen (March 2009).
Ehouzou mentioned Benin's successful support of Resolution 1612 to
fight against the use of child soldiers in armed conflicts during
its term on the United Nations Security Council in 2005. He also
cited the participation of the Beninese Armed Forced in UN
peacekeeping missions as a major diplomatic achievement. The
Minister of Foreign Affairs said that Benin had enlarged it circle
of partners by resuming diplomatic relations with a number of
unspecified countries and by engaging in diplomatic outreach to
emerging countries in the Middle East, South Asia and South America.
He deplored the fact that Benin had no strategy for getting its
officials appointed to regional and international organizations.
Ehouzou affirmed that Benin's diplomatic standing was not up to the
level that it had been on the international scene in 1990. He
recalled that the conference aimed to enable diplomats to meet
current economic challenges in order to put in place a more
inventive and dynamic development-oriented diplomacy.


4. On March 2, Jean-Marie Ehouzou accompanied by the 31 Ambassadors
presented the findings of the conference to President Yayi.
Recommendations of the conference included strategies to ensure
better administrative and financial management of the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and diplomatic missions abroad to reflect president
Yayi's agenda for economic emergence. Diplomats pledged that they
would observe the president's instructions to attain this end. Yayi
committed himself to making the Ambassadors Conference an annual
event to ensure follow-up.


5. The February 2009 Ambassadors Conference was the second of its
kind since Benin became a democracy in 1981. The GOB held three
seminars in Cotonou (1990, 1998 and 2006), but none had gathered all
the Beninese ambassadors. The GOB has expanded its diplomatic
presence, from 18 embassies in 1990 to 31 in 2009.

BROWN