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Walter Mzembi

Oliver Kazunga, Senior Business Reporter
TOURISM and Hospitality Industry Minister, Dr Walter Mzembi, who is vying for the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) secretary-general post, has proposed the setting up of a global tourism fund with a seed capital of $1,2 billion.

Speaking during the launch of his UNWTO secretary general candidature in Madrid, Spain this week, he said if elected to the helm of the world tourism body, he would initiate a global tourism fund from which member states will benefit.

“It is my intention to initiate a Global Tourism Fund from which member States shall derive substantive value.

“There simply has to be some form of mechanism to claw back even a little more of that revenue and then leverage against that seed capital to establish an effective fund.

“On the basis of the 1,2 billion travellers logged in 2015, just a single dollar per traveller, passed back, could inject $ 1,2 billion of ‘seed capital’ into such a fund,” Dr Mzembi said.

He noted that tourism and travel were inordinately taxed by national governments, and yet the sector benefited the least from the significant revenue it generates.

Dr Mzembi said a renewed and reformed UNWTO must be more proactive in collaborating with other better-resourced arms of the United Nations family to ensure that funds earmarked for development projects across various sectors include tourism-related projects as well.

This, he said, was not to imply that the world global tourism body should transform itself into a development agency – merely that it must do more to project itself and the sector it represents more visibly and more effectively in the practical allocation of global developmental funding.

“At the very least, UNWTO endorsement of country-specific projects should enhance the bankability of those projects and their eligibility for funding – from whatever source.

“Going forward to 2030, we must be able to look back at country-inspired, UNWTO-endorsed legacy projects of significant scale and repute, especially in the preferred grant, donor and multilateral funding areas of green growth and sustainable energy supply – solar being a case in point.”

Dr Mzembi added:

“The bullish performance of the US dollar and the Japanese yen against weaker currencies, for example, not to mention the Euro, whose future is synonymous with tourism-performance, must be looked into.

“These, then, are some of the areas on which, going forward, an evolving and reforming UNWTO should be providing more guidance.

“Similarly, greater inter-agency cooperation within the UN family will serve to enhance execution agency relationships which, in turn, will generate new and transformative workloads for the UNWTO.”

@okazunga