African First Ladies
Meeting to discuss health issues with African First Ladies at the Elysée Palace (13 July 2010)
On July 13th, on the eve of the tributes paid to Africa in the Bastille Day military parade, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy hosted a meeting in the Ambassadors’ Reception Room at the Elysée Palace, to discuss the problems of health in Africa with the spouses of thirteen sub-Saharan African Heads of State, invited to celebrate the fiftieth independence anniversary of their countries. Present were Chantal de Souza Yayi (Benin), Chantal Compaoré (Burkina Faso), Chantal Biya (Cameroon), Monique Bozizé (Central African Republic), Antoinette Sassou Nguesso (Congo Brazzaville), Sylvia Bongo Ondimba (Gabon), Lobbo Traoré Touré (Mali), Tekber Mint Melainine Ould Ahmed (Mauritania), Fati Alzouma Djibo Salou (Niger) and Viviane Wade (Senegal).
The First Ladies, many of whom play an active role in political life, particularly on health matters, spent ninety minutes sharing views and updates on the daily health problems, context, culture and geography of their countries. They also exchanged news on access to healthcare, the cost of medicines and the various new forms of diseases (e.g. breast cancers) now compounding established pandemics such as AIDS.
The meeting, designed to establish contact and promote synergy, was also attended by Michel Kazatchkine, Executive Director of the Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, with whom Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Global Fund’s Ambassador to protect mothers and children against AIDS, has already visited Burkina Faso and Benin.
