Foreign Affairs on African Diaspora Ministerial meeting

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 and Thursday 15
November 2007 at Gallagher Estate, Midrand. The Ministerial meeting begins on
16 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 six 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, i.e. 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 nine 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 African Uunion Commission,
which took into account all the debates and discussions that took place in the
six 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 two 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 United Kingdom, 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 17 November. This dinner will feature groups of
people singing, dancing and recitation of poetry.

We will conclude our work on Sunday 18 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 Federation International Football
Association (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 emphasise 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 21st
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 Organisation of African Unity
(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 New Partnership for Africa's Development
(Nepad) in order to deal with these challenges. We also realised we must have
the total mobilisation 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 mobilising this totality of our society, we realised a significant
proportion of this society lies beyond the shores of the African continent,
i.e. in the Diaspora. Those 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
11 November 2007