Eduardo González
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, has sent a telegram to all the ambassadors of Spain on the African continent to collaborate in the development of a new Government strategy for Africa, as reported by Europa Press and sources from the Ministry confirmed to The Diplomat.
Specifically, the minister asks the ambassadors to begin a “consultation process” with “the institutional interlocutors and the different sectors of civil society” of the countries in which they are assigned in order to gather information on “the opportunities and challenges that are currently being raised in Africa” in view of the new strategy.
This document, as indicated by the minister in the telegram, “will be key for our foreign policy towards the African continent and will be the result of a process of dialogue with our African partners, so it will represent a qualitative leap with respect to the previous Africa Plans.”
In the internal communication, the minister also asks the ambassadors to, before February 29, send it to the General Directorate for Maghreb and the Middle East, headed by Alberto Ucelay, and to the ambassador on special mission for the Sahel and for the Plan Africa, Antonio Sánchez-Benedito, “a brief report” on his efforts and on the “initiatives that Spain could launch” on the African continent.