Accra, Oct. 9, GNA - A programme to bring beauty queens of West African Countries together to assist in efforts to reduce poverty, disease and conflicts in the Sub-Region was launched in Accra on Thursday.

To this end, a meeting would be held in December under the auspices of the Ministry of Regional Cooperation and New Partnership For Africa's Development (NEPAD) and Fouss Promotion, a communication company based in Accra.

The meeting to be held on the theme: "ECOWAS Queens, Promoting Development (NEPAD), Combating AIDS and Ensuring Peace in Africa" would among other things, enable the queens to contribute to the development of education in Africa; encourage women to take active part in the decision-making process in their communities and help exchange ideas that would contribute towards solving the problems in the Sub-Region.

Prior to the meeting, each beauty queen would be tasked to conceptualise a unique project to be undertaken in her home country, which would address issues including poverty, diseases like HIV/AIDS, ignorance, marginalisation and deprivation and would promote development and the achievement of peace in Africa.

Speaking at the launching ceremony, Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku, Minister of Regional Cooperation and NEPAD, lauded the initiators of the programme, which he said, fitted perfectly into Africa's current development strategy and agenda.

The Minister said the NEPAD strategy focused on gender development by paying special attention to the involvement of women in its consultations and decision-making processes to ensure that policies and programmes appropriately prioritise the rights and needs of women.

Dr Apraku said the instability in the Sub-Region had impacted adversely on the ECOWAS integration process and there was the need to urgently resolve the civil conflicts plaguing the zone.

He said: "Most of Africa's resources and efforts have been expended on activities of peacekeeping and conflict resolution, which hamper regional integration and development.

"It is time we practice good governance, where the rule of law prevails and where property and human rights of individuals are protected and guaranteed by the State to promote national development."

Dr Apraku said regional integration among ECOWAS member states had not "lived up to expectation and it is time for governments to focus their attention on socio-economic issues that concern the continent which if not immediately addressed, would retard progress in Africa". On the scourge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the Sub-Region, Dr Apraku said in spite of numerous campaigns to curb its spread, not much had been achieved in the area of attitudinal and behavioural change.

"The increase in the number of HIV/AIDS victims in Africa is having an untold burden on families both in the rural and urban areas. The surest way to fight the pandemic is to achieve behavioural change."

He, therefore, urged community members to adopt positive lifestyles that would protect them from the disease.

Professor Sakyi Awuku Amoa, Director-General, Ghana AIDS Commission, said the launching of the meeting was very significant to the on-going HIV/AIDS national response in ECOWAS countries.

He said ever since the disease surfaced in Africa, there had been rapid increase in the prevalence rates in the Sub-Region which ranges between five to 10 per cent and that many governments and leaders were concerned that the youth be properly educated and informed to make them appreciate the seriousness of the problem.

"This is the time for the youth to be provided with the relevant information to enable them to make the right decisions and act appropriately so that they can have a worthwhile future" he emphasized.