President Yoweri Museveni has met the Secretary General of the Organization of Educational Cooperation (OEC), Sheikh Manssour Bin Mussallam at Speke Resort Hotel, Munyonyo who briefed him on the mission and vision of the cooperation.
The President welcomed the creation of OEC, a new International Organization of Countries from the Global South based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia whose objective is to work with and support member states to build balanced and inclusive education and economic systems based on solidarity, equity, and equality.
The Secretary-General Manssour Bin Mussallam informed the President of the mission and vision of the OEC which is anchored on building a balanced and inclusive education and economic systems that reflect local, national and regional contexts priorities which he described as the 3rd way of development.
To achieve this, he added there is a need to have a holistic and systematic approach to addressing the other sectors whose actions impact education such as sustainable agriculture, endogenous technology, food security, high-value industrialization and sustainable financing.
The Secretary-General informed the President that Uganda is a founding member of the OEC having signed the universal declaration of Balanced and Inclusive Education at the Summit in Djibouti in 2022 and was represented by the former Prime Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda.
The Secretary General of OEC also congratulated Uganda for achieving a historical milestone of soon assuming the Chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).
He, however, briefed President Museveni on the forthcoming General Assembly of the Organization to take place in Addis Ababa from the 27th to the 30th of June 2023 and delivered an invitation to the President.
President Museveni accepted the invitation and expressed his readiness to support the Organization.
He explained to the Secretary-General that the National Resistance Movement has a 10-point program that evolved in the 1970s and it embraced an economy that is vertically and horizontally integrated.
“I am happy to support you, you are a member of our Movement in thinking vertically and Horizontally,” the President remarked.
The Secretary-General was accompanied at the meeting by Mr Julius Mucunguzi a Ugandan National who was recently appointed to the Organization as Under Secretary General for Public Relations and Mr Hidayet Ciplokan from Turkey who is the Assistant Secretary-General for the General Assembly Affairs.