From June 28 to 30, 2021, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Development Cooperation organized the Diplomatic Week, 2021 edition under the theme: “Economic Diplomacy through the promotion of public-private partnership and local entrepreneurship for the implementation of the Burundi National Development Plan (PND 2018-2027)”. This edition constitutes the 6th organization of the Diplomatic Week since 2014, with the exception of 2015 and 2020 years, respectively following the political and security situation which prevailed in the country and the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic which pushed countries to close borders and limit the human mobility cross-border.
The overall objective is to promote the brand image of our country, to make Burundi be known and its cultural identity as well as the efforts made by the Government to further improve the well-being and standard of living of the burundian people. In this context, many tourist sites in Burundi were visited, including the southernmost source of the Nile at Rutovu and the Germans’ faults at Rutana.
This activity also aimed at better supervision of foreign diplomatic and consular missions, resident and non-resident, as well as international organizations established in Burundi.
Specifically, the 2021 activity aims to highlight the country’s decisive step towards self-financing of its development, notably through public-private partnership (PPP) and local entrepreneurship. Thus, visits to public enterprises such as the Moso sugar company (SOSUMO), the Youth Investment Bank (BIJE), theparastatal and private companies, such as AFRITEXTILE, a company specializing in textiles, and FOMI, a manufacturing plant, respectively manufacture of organo-mineral fertilizers and agricultural lime.
And, as they say, people without a history are people without a future. The Diplomatic Week 2021 also focused on showing aspects of our history that have become interesting for tourist attractions today. In this context, the provisional conservatory of human remains of 1972 massacres exhumed around Gitega was visited.
This week also offered a special moment to the Permanent Secretary Mr. Isidore NTIRAMPEBA, who represented the Head of Diplomacy, to the members of the diplomatic corps and to the representatives of international organizations to exchange freely and in a relaxed atmosphere on national and regional issues of common interest.
Note that, in these times of hardship for all the economies of the world due to the slowdown in economic activities and human mobility following the COVID-19 pandemic, the foreign diplomats who visited the identified places were able to note the resilience and the courage of burundian people in the difficult global context. At the same time, participants in these activities were invited to the festivities marking the 59th anniversary of Burundi’s independence on July 1, 2021.
