Preamble

We, Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region;

Mindful of the need to respect democracy and good governance, the fundamental principles enshrined in the UN Charter and the African Union Constitutive Act, notably territorial integrity, national sovereignty, non-interference and non-aggression, prohibition of any Member State from allowing the use of its territory as a base for aggression or subversion against another Member State;

Mindful of the need for an effective and sustained political will to jointly seek peaceful solutions to disputes and more especially to honor our commitments in a spirit of mutual trust;

Reaffirming our individual and collective determination to base the relations between our States on international legal instruments and universal fundamental principles, the priority political options and the guiding principles referred to in the Dar-es-Salaam

Declaration, as well as to transform the Great Lakes Region, in the framework of our common destiny, into a space of durable peace and security, of political and social stability, and of economic growth and shared development by multi-sector cooperation and integration for the sole benefit of our peoples;

Determined to ensure the strict observance of the standards and principles of international humanitarian law, notably those relating to the protection and assistance of women, children, refugees and displaced persons, the violations of which have seriously affected the populations concerned;

Reaffirming our decision taken at Dar-es-Salaam to declare the Great Lakes Region a specific zone of reconstruction and development and jointly determined to meet the challenge of reconstruction and development with the full participation of all our peoples, particularly in partnership with the civil society organizations, young people, women, the private sector and religious organizations, as well as in close cooperation with the relevant regional organizations, the African Union, the United Nations, and the international community in general;

Determined to adopt and implement collectively the appropriate Programmes of Action, the Protocols and mechanisms to translate into reality the priority political options and the guiding principles of the Dar-es-Salaam Declaration;

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