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Sharm-El-Sheikh - Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has stressed the urgent need to finalise the integration process of the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) into the African Union (AU).

"The finalisation seems to be a priority, considering the coherence and cohesion requirements in the African efforts for the continent's social and economic development," he told the 9th session of the Heads of State and Government Committee on NEPAD's implementation.

The session was held in this Egyptian red Sea resort on the eve of the annual summit of Heads of State and government of the AU.

President Bouteflika said the urgency to finalise the NEPAD integration process was also related to the need to take quality into consideration in the implementation of the major regional, restructuring projects that are fully developed.

He added that five years ago Africa launched the African Peer Review Mechanism (APRM), showing its conviction that good governance provided a plus value to its development efforts and had never been a constraint imposed from the outside.

Since its launch, he added, the APRM had become one of Africa's substantial assets that should be strengthened by improving its work and refining its goals, to better serve Africa and preserve it from any foreign influence, with a view to keeping the purely African initiative nature.

President Bouteflika put a slant on the importance of addressing the ongoing global food crisis, which is threatening the continent in particular.

Considerable efforts had been made for the development of agriculture, which constituted one of the AU's main priorities, he stressed, while noting the launch of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme.

However, Africa had no less been affected by global food crisis, "hence the need to have agricultural development in Africa, with all its dimensions, at the heart of our concerns and to make it benefit of an international co-operation,” he stressed. – BuaNews-NNN