Your Excellency the President of Ghana and Chairperson of the African Union, Your Excellency the Chairman and Commissioners of the African Union Commission, Your Excellencies Brothers Presidents, Heads of State and Government, Distinguished Guests,

Mr Chair of the African Union we thank you and the Government and people of Ghana for the excellent hosting of this meeting and we thank you for the exemplary leadership which you have shown as Ghana leads the way in economic progress and development. Excellencies, Liberia is pleased to have a full voice in this historic meeting in Accra, the birth place of Africa's renowned Pan-Africanist Kwame Nkrumah.

Mr Chairman you have recalled that on its independence in 1957 that great African leader President Nkrumah called forthe establishment of the United States of Africa. In 1959 Liberia, a long time support of liberation throughout the African continent called for a more measured approach through the establishment of an Association of African States that would focus on the building of African institutions as a path towards the achievement of President Nkrumah's dream of one Africa.

These two movement led to the formation in 1961 of the Casablanca group promoting the views of President Nkrumah and the Monrovia/Sanqualii group representing the views promoted by Tanzanian President Julius Nyerere and the Liberian President William Tubman. In 1963, in effect adopting the Monrovia alternative, the Organisation of African Unity was born. This was followed in 1964 by the establishment of the African Development Bank.

Since those historic developments, we have seen Africa in prosperity and in decline, in peace and in war, in unity and in disharmony. We have seen the establishment and the dissolution of regional and continental institutions. We have seen countries in robust economic growth and countries economic free fall. We have seen the transformation of the Organization of African Unity to the more vibrant African Union.

Excellencies, today almost 45 years after the Casablanca and Monrovia movements, we are back to the challenge, we are in the country of President Nkrumah to discuss, once again, the unity of Africa, the mobilisation of our continent's natural and human resources for the development of the African people. Today, almost 45 years later Liberia, our great country, this promoter of African liberation lies in ruin her people displaced, her infrastructures destroyed, her citizens impoverished, her new Government facing the awesome challenge of moving our country on to the path of peace, reconciliation and development.