including the possibility of multilateral or bilateral agreements, regarding the development of each of the African countries. I- At the multilateral level 509. Mindful of the need to consolidate its links of cooperation and complimentarity with the African countries and to actively contribute to the enhancement of African solidarity, Tunisia has always recommended, in the various institutions and international forums, on the one hand, the quest for appropriate solutions to the requirements of sustainable development in the African countries, and this in consideration of their political, economic and social specificities, and on the other, the judicious exploitation of the human potential and natural resources concealed by the African Continent. 510. Thus, Tunisia has advocated, through its initiative launched in 1999 for the creation of the World Solidarity Fund, the laying of the foundations of a more just, more stable and more interdependent world in which the international community would play an active role in the eradication of the plague of poverty and in the elimination of the phenomena of destitution and deprivation currently suffered by several African countries. The adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of this initiative on the 20th December 2002, reflects Tunisia’s unshakeable attachment to the implanting of the principles of justice, solidarity and sustained development, strengthened by an experiment successfully carried out in this area at the national level. 511. Besides, Tunisia has actively supported the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) as it constitutes a re-affirmation of the will of the Africans to take the destiny of their Continent into their own hands and it is a privileged framework for the stimulation of the relations of cooperation and partnership between the African countries. Towards this end, Tunisia participates regularly and actively in the different NEPAD structures and consistently calls for the concretization and the sanctioning of the principles of solidarity and cooperation between the African countries. It also insists on the need to perfect economic integration so as to benefit from the opportunities offered in the context of the triangular cooperation to achieve both the objectives of NEPAD and those of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). 512. Tunisia has steadfastly undertaken to achieve, increased cooperation, complementarity and integration within the framework of the spaces of direct membership, in its Maghrebi, Arab, Islamic, Mediterranean and African environment. It has continued to have a special interest in African affairs to which it bestows a place of privilege in its foreign relations. Thus, the need has several times been re-affirmed to intensify the relations of cooperation between the different African countries, in particular vis-à-vis the Continent’s major causes, with development, the settlement of conflicts, the strengthening of a climate of peace and stability, the control of epidemics and the promotion of relations of cooperation between the States of the Continent figuring on the forefront. 513. In concretization of this tendency, Tunisia contributed positively during the Lusaka Summit (July 2000) to the gathering of conditions favourable for the advent of the African Union. It played an important role in the founding of this organization, in the identification of consensual solutions and the rapprochement of views relating to numerous structural issues with regard to the functioning of the Union. 108