APPENDIX III

 

 

 

Address by Mr. Nacer Mehal

AMAN President and APS Director General

To the 17th General Assembly of AMAN

Lisbon, 24 June 2008

 

 

 

Dear colleagues

Ladies and Gentlemen

 

 

Let me first, as the current President of AMAN and on behalf of all the delegates here present, express my deep gratitude to our friend José Manual Barroso and all his collaborators for their warm welcome, for the efforts they deployed to make our stay as nice as possible in this beautiful city and for the good conditions aiming to make our meeting a huge success.

 

Dear colleagues,

 

Since the holding of the 16th session of our General Assembly in Algiers in June 2007, the second in Algiers in less than 5 years, I have been appointed president of the Alliance and I would like to thank you for the trust you placed in me, along with all my colleagues, members of the Follow-up Committee, for their precious help and efforts to fulfill successfully the mission assigned to us.

 

With regard to the activities of our Alliance held last year, I would like to recall that the meeting of the Follow-up Committee took place on April 1st, 2008 in Lisbon in the presence of all the members and in response to the kind invitation of   our friend and colleague Barroso, to whom I reiterate my sincere acknowledgments for having contributed, at all the levels, to the holding of this meeting, following which a report has been given to all the member agencies of AMAN.

 

To be brief, I just want to broach the contests of the best article and the best photo, of which the results will be announced by Secretary General, Mr Penintaex, to voice our satisfaction with the increasing number of the participants compared to last year and I reiterate my wish to see all the member agencies take part in these initiatives.

 

The Follow-up Committee has made proposals to be submitted to the kind attention of the delegates here present in this session calling them to consider and decide on some of them in an effort to improve the functioning of our organisation.    

 

Furthermore, some delegates have expressed during the previous Assembly their wish to see training sessions double for the different staff of the Alliance member agencies.

 

In this regard, the Follow-up Committee has been in charge of prospecting all the opportunities in this area. To this end, I started consultations with the representative of the European Union in Algiers and Reuters Foundation but in vain. Only the AFP foundation was receptive to cooperate with the Alliance. This receptiveness was reiterated by its president, who was called to take part in the previous meeting of the Follow-up Committee in a bid to examine together the ways and means likely to establish cooperation between the two parties. The Secretary General of our Alliance will provide you with further explanations on this subject.

 

However, we addressed the representative of the European Union in Algiers to see how it can finance the training sessions within the framework of the relations between the two shores of the Mediterranean. Unfortunately, the request met with rejection.

      

In terms of training, the APS presidency has been marked by the organization in Algiers of two training sessions in the benefit of young journalists from the Alliance-member agencies, supervised by two well experienced journalists.

This training comprised two sections, one in English and the other in French with a view to involving the maximum of journalists. It took place from 5 to 7 May 2008 with the participation of seven agencies.

         

These two training sessions have been partially financed by the Alliance’s Funds for the expenditures of trainers’ transport and remuneration, while the APS covered the expenditure of trainers and trainees’ stay.

 

Furthermore, we have been invited to take part in the Organization of Asian News Agencies (OANA)’s General Assembly held in Jakarta (Indonesia). I give the floor to the General Secretary to present more specifics about that question.

 

As for the Alliance’s other activities such as the Alliance’s website, the Newsletter, Mednews Bulletin, our institution’s financial situation, the General Secretary will set out these activities with more details.

 

But, I would like to make a candid observation that in absence of a generation of ideas and more fruitful activism from the member agencies, our Alliance can no longer continue to run only on some willingness.

 

In Lisbon, I wish for the birth of a new spirit so that North-South cooperation on Mediterranean that unites us will not be synonymous of the Mediterranean that divides us. It is my unique message as I leave office of AMAN chairman.

 

Finally, I reiterate my thanks to Mr. Barroso and his assistants as well as to the members of the Follow-up Committee for their generous contribution. I am delighted to hand over AMAN chairmanship to my friend Barroso who, I am sure and convinced, will take selflessly these responsibilities and I wish him every success.

 

Thank you for your attention.

 

         

 

-----------------