Sierra Leone has joined other countries to find innovative and proactive ways that will support the implementation of the General Assembly Resolution A/75/123 which declares the period 2021-2030 as the Fourth International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism across the world.
It could be recalled that since the 1990s, the Special Committee on Decolonization (C-24) has been organizing a series of regional seminars, alternately in the Caribbean and the Pacific regions to review the progress achieved in the implementation of the Plan of Action for the International Decade for the Eradication of Colonialism.
While addressing the seminar in Castries Saint Lucia, the Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations, H.E. Alhaji Fanday Turay maintained that sixty years after the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, there is still the need for all stakeholders to double their efforts to revive the cordiality that encourages frank and open discussions on several matters that concern the peoples of the Seventeen Non-Self-Governing territories.
In a series of its resolutions on the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the General Assembly requested the C-24 to “conduct seminars, as appropriate, for the purpose of receiving and disseminating information on the work of the Special Committee.
This objective is also pursued to facilitate participation by the peoples of the Non-Self-Governing Territories in those seminars to enable the C-24 to obtain the views of representatives of the Non-Self -Governing Territories experts, members of the civil society, the Member States and other stakeholders that can assist the C-24 in identifying policy approaches and practical means that can be pursued in the United Nations decolonization process.
Ambassador Turay further noted that the regional seminar continues to be one of the most effective multilateral platforms where constructive engagements aimed at accelerating the Decolonization agenda as prescribed by the relevant General Assembly resolutions occur.
“It is necessary that all parties strive to engage appropriately by building on lessons learned from the pandemic and collaborate to assist the territories achieve political maturity, administrative capacity, and economic sustainability,” he said and concluded by assuring participants that his delegation strongly supports the work of the Committee and stressed that joint action is needed to address the challenges facing the Non-Self-Governing Territories.
