Introduction to the forum

African Geopolitics is pleased to be associated with the journal Passages in presenting this feature on "Africa and sustainable developpment". The 5th Global Forum on Sustainable Development, organised by Passages, was held in Paris on 6 and 7 December 2007. In October 2008 the Forum will be held in Brazzaville. Emile H. Malet, a well-known signature in the Parisian press, partiularly for Quotidien de Paris, is the director and editor-in-chief of Passages and the director of the Association of Friends of Passages (ADAPes), a think-tank that has acquired a good reputation for the symposiums, seminars andresearch that it regularly conducts on major international questions. His speech is reproduced below.