President Abdel Fattah El Sisi took part, Thursday, in the second Coordination Summit between the African Union and regional economic groupings at the continental level.
“The summit discussed challenges that the novel coronavirus pandemic imposed on African countries and their efforts to develop continental and regional integration,” said Presidency Spokesperson Bassam Rady.
He added that the leaders also tackled how to strengthen the mechanisms of joint African action in order to overcome the current circumstances, especially by supporting public health capacities and confronting epidemics in Africa, and exchanging lessons learned and best practices in containing the pandemic.
During the summit, Sisi welcomed the effort made to follow up on the results of the first coordination summit chaired by Egypt in July 2019 in Niger.
The Egyptian president also stressed the importance of working to achieve the required harmony in the performance of African regional groupings to move in a balanced pace towards implementing the continental integration agenda, as well as the need to coordinate regional integration efforts with the advancement of the infrastructure and energy networks at the continental level.
Sisi asserted that infrastructure, energy supplies, and transportation are the basis of regional integration in Africa.
“In the same context, the president stressed the need to continue negotiations on the Continental Free Trade Agreement seriously, with the aim of fully activating it in order to fulfill the common African dream of promoting economic integration,” Rady noted. 
Sisi told the African leaders that this project is a key axis for achieving the rest of the continental integration goals, in addition to the importance of maximizing the central and leading role of the African Union Development Agency (NEPAD) in mobilizing the financial resources that would enable the implementation of the pilot continental projects of Africa's development agenda 2063.
Moreover, the summit witnessed a review of the developments of various initiatives on continental integration, as well as proposals for the pision of labor between the African Union, regional economic groupings and member states.
The participants also discussed the current situation of the spread of the COVID-19 across the continent, as well as the efforts of the African Union to mobilize resources to confront this crisis, and the contributions of African countries in this regard, especially Egypt.
It’s noteworthy that Egypt provided medical aid, laboratory equipment, and technical expertise to African countries and supported the African Fund to Combat Coronavirus and the African Center for Disease and Epidemic Control.
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