PM Lee Hsien Loong at the 2nd Asian-African Summit

Your Excellencies

May I thank President Joko Widodo and the Indonesian government for organising this Summit. The Bandung Conference initiated by President Sukarno in 1955 was a major landmark in the post-war era. It connected Asian and African countries together, under common values of non-alignment and self-determination and inspired the independence of many new countries. In the case of Singapore ourselves, Africa also made a contribution in our independence struggle. In 1964, when Singapore was part of Malaysia, my father, the then Prime Minister Mr Lee Kuan Yew led a mission to Africa to explain the concept of Malaysia to our African friends. He visited 17 African capitals over 35 days – A trip of more than one month. The solidarity we got from our African friends at the UN and in international for a played an important role in securing support for Malaysia. Many of the friends Mr Lee made more than half a century ago are still our friends today. Therefore I would like to borrow this opportunity to thank many of you who have conveyed to me and to Singapore, your condolences for Mr Lee Kuan Yew, who passed away about a month ago.

After Singapore became an independent nation in 1965, we sent missions to Africa, to explore new trade and business opportunities. But the links and the business was slow to take off. Perhaps we were ahead of our time. However I am glad that in recent years, the story has changed. The globalised world has brought Asia and Africa closer together. Asian countries are realising the many bright spots and vibrant development centres of growth which exist and are taking off in Africa and the relations between Asia and Africa and generally between Singapore and Africa are picking up. In fact last year, we organised our third Africa-Singapore Business Forum!

Speaking from an East Asian perspective, we still do not understand Africa enough, so we need to work hard to appreciate this diverse, enormous and tremendously vibrant continent better. Therefore I am glad that with the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP) chaired by Indonesia and South Africa since the first summit meeting back in 2005, we are fostering greater cooperation between these two continents.

This year is the 60th Anniversary of the 1955 Asian African Conference (AAC) and the theme this year is South-South cooperation. It is a relevant theme, not because it can be an alternative to North-South cooperation. But because it recognises how interdependent and inter-related our two continents have become and the opportunities that we have in jointly tackling common challenges like terrorism, pandemics, and climate change. Through the conference we can also exchange ideas on how to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) which will be launched at the UN later this year.

Singapore stands ready to play our part in this joint endeavour. We have shared our development experience with our friends for many years through the Singapore Cooperation Programme (SCP). We had benefitted from such partnerships earlier in our economic development, when many other countries provided technical assistance and helped to train Singaporeans and get us to make the first step of economic development. So we are glad that now we made a little progress we are able to do likewise for other countries and to pay it forward. Over the past two decades, 8,000 African officials have been trained through SCP courses. One recent example is our joint project with the United Nations Office for Disaster Reduction, which focuses on setting up early warning systems, conducting vulnerability assessments, and adapting to climate change. This project supports Asian as well as African countries in implementing the Post-2015 Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. We also support standalone SDGs on urbanisation, and water and sanitation at the ongoing discussions at the UN and we have made a small contribution by organising the World Cities Summit and the Singapore International Water Week last year, which was attended by more than 120 Asian and African Ministers, Mayors, leaders of cities.

So our Indonesian colleagues have laid the very valuable groundwork for the Asian African Conference to remain relevant. The best way for us to honour the Bandung legacy is to build on it and adapt it to a new century and a very different world.

Once again, my congratulations and thanks to President Joko Widodo for the successful hosting of this Summit.

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