Notes following Press Conference by Ambassador Jessie Duarte regarding African Diaspora Ministerial Meeting, Media Centre, Union Buildings, Pretoria, Sunday 11 November 2007

Remarks by Ambassador Jessie Duarte

Let me first thank you for coming to this briefing on a Sunday morning.

I would like to brief you on the forthcoming Africa Diaspora Ministerial meeting which begins at senior officials level on Wednesday 14 – Thursday 15 November 2007 at Gallagher Estate, Midrand.  The Ministerial meeting begins on the 16 th November also at Gallagher Estate.

I would like to give you the highlights of the programme following which I will invite Dr Adissa who is based in Addis Ababa in the office of the Chair of the African Union Commission to brief you on some of the more substantive issues.

I will begin with the process: we have had 6 Regional Consultative Conferences (RCCs) in Brazil which encompassed a number of countries from Latin America – Argentina, Mexico, Peru amongst other; in the Caribbean; in Paris for members of the African Diaspora living in Europe which was attended by approximately 400 people including academics and those who were interested in the matter; in Washington DC for members of the Diaspora based in North America, ie. In both Canada and the United States; in Addis Ababa which was attended by all 53 members of the African Union which defined issues that would be included in the programme of action.

In a sense the process was very intense and the meetings to be held this week represent the culmination of 18 months of work.  The point at which we are will enable us to hold a meeting of some people from the Diaspora as well as African Ministers, Ministers from the Caribbean – we have to date received confirmation that 9 members of the Caribbean will attend this meeting.

In terms of the programme: on Wednesday 14 November 2007 we will commence with the meeting of senior officials and this meeting will review the draft programme of the Ministerial meeting as well as to examine a document that we have collectively prepared – South Africa and the AU Commission – which took into account all the debates and discussions that took place in the 6 RCCs and we have lifted out the key issues that were common to all the discussions as well as recommendations for a programme of action for the African Diaspora.

We will begin the Ministerial meeting on Friday 16 November 2007 at 14h30.  Foreign Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma will open the meeting.  Mirriam Makeba has agreed to present a gift of three items to the meeting; Professor Konare will speak on that day at 15h00.  We have a 92 year old Professor Dudley Thompson who is a member of a group of Pan-Africanists who worked with Marcus Garvey and has an enormous institutional memory of all the years of discussions on the matter of the African Diaspora.  We thought it would be important for him to make a contribution.  Ambassador Colin Grandison who is the Assistant Secretary-General of Caricom will also speak at this session.

We will have a representative from the American Black Congressional Caucaus speaking but I am awaiting confirmation as to who it will be.

During the closed session we will have a presentation of the consolidated outcomes document.  Mr James Early, the Director for Cultural Studies and Communication at the Centre for Cultural Studies at the Smithsonian Institution will respond to the outcomes document and programme of action.

At 19h45 that first evening, President Mbeki will address the Meeting. 

We will begin day 2 in earnest with discussions on the various themes, the first of which will be Global Dialogue, Peace and Stability.  During this discussion we will hear from Ambassador Djinnit of the African Union and Dr Ben Bietman who is the President of the Pan African Strategic and Policy Group based in Europe and that theme will locate itself around the global discussions of peace and peace support missions as well as the expansion of the reality of peace as a pre-cursor to economic and social development.

Another theme will be Economic Development, Regional Development and Integration.  Mr Grandisson will facilitate this session.  The AU Commissioner for Economic Affairs will make an input.  The South African Minister of Trade and Industry will speak during this session.  Also, a Mr Michael Sudacasa who is the CEO of the Africa Business Group based in South Africa will also speak during this session.

The third theme focuses on Women, Youth, Children and Vulnerable Groups.  The panel is this discussion will be rather large.  The AU Commissioner for Social Affairs will speak during this session, the President of the African Cultural Institute in Berlin and also the President of the German (inaudible) Economic Institution – they have done a lot of work in terms of the value of remittances from people living in the Diaspora into Africa.  Dr Legu and Erica Bennet are related to the Diaspora Forum based in Accra and will both speak during that session.

On Historic, Social, Religious and Cultural Commonalities has thus far been the most popular theme.  Many delegates have indicated their interest in participating in that theme.  The Cuban Deputy Minister of Culture will make an input during this session.  The South African Minister of Arts and Culture will speak during this session.  Professor Amina Mama from Egypt and the current director for gender studies at UCT will also speak during this session.  And Ester Stanford based in the UK, she is the General Secretary of the Black United Front based in the UK will also speak during this session.  I am sure Dr Adissa will expand on this when he addresses you.   

Then we have the Gala Dinner that will be hosted by the Minister of Arts and Culture on the evening of the 17 th November.  This Dinner will feature groups of people singing, dancing and recitation of poetry. 

We will conclude our work on Sunday 18 th November 2007.  We will have the Knowledge Sharing Panel on that day.  The South African Minister of Science and Technology.  The Director at the Centre for Advanced Studies of African Society will speak.  Carl Blackwood who is an eminent scientist will speak during that session and we also have the UNISA African relations director who will speak during that session.

Then we will have a presentation on the FIFA 2010 World Cup and opportunities to create the African Legacy Programme and Danny Jordan will make that input and field questions for discussion.

Finally, Dr Adissa will present the draft programme of action that will have been the outcome of all our discussions and debates from both the senior officials and Ministerial sessions. 

The closing ceremony is open to the media and will be chaired by the Foreign Minister of Ghana.  Professor Konare will make closing remarks and Caricom will also make closing remarks.  There will be press conference led by Minister Dlamini Zuma, Professor Konare and Colin Grandisson to close the meeting.  They will field your questions about the process and the programme.

I would like to invite Dr Adissa to give you a sense of the issues we will be dealing with in the week to come.

Remarks by Dr Jimni Adissa

Thank you very much Ambassador.

I do not want to bore you with repetition.  However, the Ambassador has established the broad framework and I will provide some emphasis on certain issues.

First of all let me introduce myself – I am the Director of the African citizens directorate which is responsible for Civil Society and Diaspora Relations of the African Union Commission and we are located within the offices of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission. 

I would like the emphasize the process itself: a lot of emphasis should be placed on this process because the idea of the Diaspora Process is to create the Global African Family after years of enforced separation by slavery, colonialism, and expediency which a lot of our people have experienced due to emigration to Europe, etc.  So we want to re-create and foster a sense of the African family as a logical successor to the pan-African conferences and to consolidate the pan-African ethos as a basis for the Renaissance in the 21 st century.

So the idea is also to ensure that if you want to create a family, you have to talk amongst yourselves, you must have an agenda.  We have had consultative dialogues all around the world in Europe, the Americas and Africa itself. 

What were the basic objectives of these consultative dialogues?  I will briefly list them:

• One of them is to mobilise all constituencies of the African Family;
• To establish thematic areas of co-operation and establish a mechanism for follow up processes;.

We had to mobilise everybody, establish areas of co-operation, draw up areas of action and put into place and framework for action.  This is the agenda. 

And something the Ambassador will not say: the African Diaspora is a very capital intensive one.  It costs a lot of money to hold consultative dialogues all around the world to create an African family, to ensure your family is solid you have build houses, the foundation.  You must establish a sense of camaraderie – this kind of thing.

The African Union Commission is very happy to say that South Africa has played a very key role, it has co-operated with us and provided a lot of the resources that has allowed us to hold these RCCs.  It is easy to draft a programme for co-operation in Addis Ababa but if the other countries have not bought into it, it will not be very useful.

This has been a very capital intensive process.  I would like to acknowledge the debt and gratitude we owe to the people and government of South Africa for playing a very good role in preparations for this Conference.

One of the other things I would like to say: we hope that from this Conference we develop not just a programme of action but areas where we can in a year or so, evaluate progress.  Secondly, this programme must be sustained.  We have not had such a programme of action 

We must mobilise the necessary international institutions to provide support to this process.

There are several components of the Diaspora programme – women, youth, and so on that we want to bring together under an umbrella.

The programme of action focuses on the political, economic and social and cultural aspects.

Thank you.

Questions and answers

Question Dr Adissa spoke of the Global African Family – to what does this refer?

 Answer (Professor Adissa) The whole idea of bringing the African Diaspora into the processes of the African Union – when the OAU was created, the focus was on the decolonisation of the Continent.  After about 40 years we realised that we must add to this process.  Once decolonisation was achieved, the next challenge was development.

We created a social programme like NEPAD in order to deal with these challenges.  We also realized we must have the total mobilization of all segments of society.

This has two implications: if you look at the Constitutive Act it says that this Union will be a partnership of governments and all segments of civil society so we want to mobiles the totality of our society.  The second aspect is that when mobilizing this totality of our society, we realized a significant proportion of this society lies beyond the shores of the African continent – ie. in the Diaspora.  Thos within the Continent can contribute to the development processes.

We have the African Diaspora to allow those beyond the Continent to contribute to the processes.

Issued by Department of Foreign Affairs
Private Bag X152
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11 November 2007