Summits

The Summit of OACPS Heads of State and Government is the supreme organ of the Group. It defines the Group´s general policy orientation.

Since 1997, Heads of State and Government of Members of the OACPS have been meeting regularly to lay down the broad guidelines for the general policy of the OACPS and give the Council of Ministers instructions related to its implementation.

The Summit is presided over by the Head of State or Government of the host-country and organized by a Bureau comprising the President-in-Office, the outgoing President and the incoming President (if already designated).

• Summit Declarations

• 1st ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Libreville, Gabon, November 1997
  Changes on the world scene at the end of the 80s, which saw the end of ideological bipolarisation, the economic problems of that era, and other factors prompted ACP Heads of State and Government to meet, for the first time, in Libreville, Gabon, in November 1997. At that first Summit, they laid down the guidelines for strengthening the OACPS by assigning more specific roles to the ACP organs and reforming the General Secretariat by transforming it to an executive institution. The OACPS also extended consultations among its member-countries to various fora such as the United Nations Organisation.

  Libreville Declaration

• 2nd ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, November 1999
  The 2nd ACP Summit, “On the road to the 3rd millennium” was the opportunity for the ACP Heads of State and Government to redefine the broad thrust of ACP cooperation for the new millennium. The Summit gave more precise directives for intra-ACP cooperation and broadened the scope of the Group which, while maintaining its privileged partnership with the European Union, needed to develop a dialogue with other blocs and make its voice heard in the new economic and geopolitical context. The affirmation of the ACP Group’s presence at the Ministerial Conferences of the World Trade Organisation, for example, (Doha, November 2001, and Cancun, September 2003) is the logical consequence of the Summit directives and their subsequent implementation.

  Santo Domingo Declaration

• 3rd ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Nadi, Fiji, July 2002
  The main theme of the 3rd Summit of ACP Heads of State and Government was “ACP Solidarity in a globalised world”. It established guidelines in view of the negotiation of future ACP-EU Economic Partnership Agreements, with a view to positioning the OACPS in the current economic and geopolitical context.

  Nadi Declaration

• 4th ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Maputo, Mozambique, June 2004
  “Together shaping our Future”

  Maputo Declaration

• 5th ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Khartoum, Sudan, December 2006
  At the 5th Summit, OACPS leaders committed to take all measures, including participatory development approach and especially within the Group, consistent with the theme of the Summit, “United for Peace, Solidarity and Sustainable Development”, to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development, peace and stability for their communities.

  Khartoum Declaration

• 6th ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Accra, Ghana, October 2008
  At the 6th ACP Summit, themed “Promoting human security and development”, leaders pledged to collaborate to promote human security and development in order to attain the ultimate goal of poverty eradication among their people and to foster sustainable development.

  Accra Declaration

• 7th ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Sipopo, Equatorial Guinea, December 2012
  At this Summit, themed, ‘The ACP Group in a Changing World: Challenges and Opportunities’, the OACPS committed to intensified South-South cooperation, while calling for more development-friendly relations with European partners. The Sipopo Declaration addressed broad areas of peace, security and good governance; development finance; international trade; energy, climate change and sustainable development; and the future outlook of the ACP Group as an international institution.

  Sipopo Declaration

• 8th ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, May to June 2016
  Leaders, at the 8th Summit, themed, “Repositioning the ACP Group to respond to the challenges of sustainable development”, made pronouncements on the areas of peace and stability, culture, gender equity, sustainable economic development, trade, and climate change as well as issues of development finance and global governance.

  Port Moresby Declaration

• 9th ACP Heads of State and Government Summit, Nairobi, Kenya, December 2019
  At the 9th ACP Summit, themed “A Transformed ACP Committed to Multilateralism”, the revised Georgetown Agreement was approved by the ACP Council and endorsed by the Heads of State. A key outcome of the revised Georgetown Agreement was the change of name from the ‘African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Group of States’ to the ‘Organisation of African, Caribbean and Pacific States’.

  Nairobi Nguvu Ya Pamoja Declaration