The African Union Commissioner for Social Affairs, H.E. Amira Elfadil Mohammed Elfadil, and the Ambassador and Head of Mission of China to the African Union, H.E. Mr Yuxi Liu, visited the site of the Africa CDC headquarters building in company of other representatives of the African Union and China today. The visit was to view the site and receive detail briefing about the construction.
Located in the African Village, south of Addis Ababa, the new site covers an area of 90,000m2 with a total construction area of nearly 40,000m2. When completed the building will include an emergency operation centre, a data centre, laboratory, resource centre, briefing rooms, training centre, conference centre, offices, and expatriate apartments, all to be constructed, furnished and equipped by the Government of China.
Commissioner Elfadil thanked the Government of Ethiopia for providing the land and the Government of China for offering to construct the building. She promised to do everything possible to ensure that construction work starts very soon.
“This visit marks the beginning of the construction project and we thank the Government of Ethiopia for giving us the land and the Government of China for offering to finance the construction. All the approval documents have been submitted to the Office of the Chairperson and the African Union is ready.
We will work with the Governments of Ethiopia and China to ensure that construction starts before the end of this year,” she said.
“Africa CDC headquarters is another landmark project aided by the Government of the People’s Republic of China to enhance the welfare of African people. It is a flagship project that will contribute to improving health in Africa and advance efforts towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and the African Union’s Agenda 2063,” said H.E. Liu.
The headquarters building is expected to become one of the best-equipped centres for disease control in Africa, allowing Africa CDC to play its role as the technical institution coordinating disease prevention, surveillance and control in the continent in partnership with the national public health institutes and ministries of health of Member States.
