Washington, DC — Wondering what became of the National Summit on Africa after its successful conference in Washington, D.C. last year, and the drafting of a "national plan of action" for Africa? The National Summit is now "The Africa Society", a permanent organization chaired by former United Nations ambassador Andrew Young. It aims to educate Americans about Africa. Leonard H. Robinson, Jr. is President and Chief Executive Officer of the recast organization. In the second of an occasional series of interviews with leaders of Africa-focused organizations in the US, allAfrica.com's Charles Cobb Jr. spoke with Robinson about the transformation. Excerpts:
Will you discuss the evolution of the National Summit on Africa? If I have the name right you are now the Africa Society of the National Summit on Africa. First, Why the "Africa Society"? How do you get to that title?
The Africa Society is really the direct outgrowth of the National Summit process that started back in 1997 with a series of regional summits around the United States. The purpose of the National Summit on Africa was threefold: One, to initiate the process of informing and educating all Americans about Africa - most Americans don't know anything about Africa. Secondly, to energize and mobilize, a broad base of support for Africa throughout the United States. And thirdly, to put together a very interesting document [the "National Plan of Action" that emerged out of the National Summit on Africa held last year] - a novel "peoples" document if you will. I often refer to it as a "peoples manifesto". It essentially laid out in considerable detail their views, their recommendations as to what the foreign policy relationship should be between the United States and the various countries of Africa, both individually and within the universal context of the continent.
A year and a half before the national summit was held, we began holding a series of regional summits in Atlanta, Chicago, San Francisco, Denver, Baltimore and Boston. And then we had three policy forums at UCLA, the University of Oklahoma, and Texas Southern. All of this culminated in the grand national summit event in February of last year where about 8,000 Americans, Africans living throughout the United States, Africans from Europe, Africans from the continent, came to Washington, D.C. And it was a very powerful, powerful experience, the largest gathering on Africa in the history of the United States.
As the regional summits started rolling across the [U.S.] continent we began to notice the emergence of a sentiment among various people throughout the country - especially grassroots organizations, local and state organizations, individuals involved in Africa, whether they were corporate executives or they were former foreign service officers in the Department of State, down to the ladies who go to church every Sunday and conduct the bake sales. We discovered that across America there was a deep reservoir of interest in Africa.
When you say "deep interest" in America, is this in any way colored by race or is this a general interest?
It's a little bit of both. Obviously among African Americans there is a deep interest. Their organizations, little grassroots organizations that you don't hear about are struggling and doing small but significant things related to Africa. We also discovered that you can stimulate interest in Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans and white Americans all over the country. The summit process was open, inclusive, diverse; we did not bar anybody at the door. Everybody was welcome, including - especially - Africans residing in the United States regardless of what their visa status was. Let me give you a graphic example of the kind of interest we found. The first regional summit was in Atlanta - for the southeast region. Ambassador Andrew Young and Goodworks International served as our regional institutional partner. Two weeks before that summit was held in May of 1998 Ambassador Young said to me and Bernadette Paolo, my vice president, that he thought that we'd maybe get three to four hundred people to come to the regional summit - we planned on five hundred people. But we had 3,500 people come to Atlanta. Not only did they come from the region, they came from across the country. They came from New York. They came from California. They came from all over.
A year and a half before the national summit, Earl Shinholster - the late Earl Shinholster who was the chair of the Georgia state delegation to the National Summit on Africa - said during a meeting that took place right here in this Carnegie building with the state chairs from the southeast and Midwest regions - he said, "Robinson, we understand that when the National Summit is over you guys are going to fold the tent. That's irresponsible! We worked hard; people are catching on to this idea, really getting involved - you saw what happened in Atlanta. If the momentum continues and the power of what you are doing continues, you need to find a way to make this permanent."
Well, to make a very long story short, in October 1999 after the last regional summit had been held in Denver, the late Reverend Leon Sullivan and I met here in Washington at the Mayflower Hotel. I was trying to convince Reverend Sullivan, who was one of our honorary co-chairs, to come to the National Summit. And he looked at me and said, "Robinson, I'm going to come to the summit not only because I know you and I respect you, but I'm going to come because I am very impressed with what the summit has initiated in terms of systematically beginning to educate Americans about Africa." He started pointing to people in the hotel lobby saying, "that person, that man, that woman, they don't know anything about Africa and quite frankly, they don't care."
Then he said, "Now the problem I have with the summit is that first of all you guys use the term summit." I told him it would not have been my choice of words because I thought it would confuse Africans on the continent - and it has unfortunately. [Ed. note: The Africa-Africa America Summit, an annual event organized in Africa by Reverend Sullivan is the source of confusion Leonard Robinson refers to here] "Africans would ask us how are you working with Leon Sullivan? What's the difference?"
I like what you're doing, Reverend Sullivan said, but you have only begun to scratch the surface. "There's so much more you have to do; you can't just shut this thing down. You support what I'm doing in Africa and I'll support what you're doing in the United States." And of Course Leon Sullivan came to the Summit, made an incredible speech that turned the summit out and turned everybody on.
Everybody left Washington D.C. February 20, 2000 feeling exhilarated - high as cloud 18 with respect to the experience. So the board at that time and I made a decision - a unanimous decision - to see if we could put together a phase two of the National Summit on Africa. But we were groping for what to call it. Now every region in America, and some major countries like Japan and Korea, have a society in the United States that works everyday to improve understanding and knowledge and interaction between Americans and the people of that region or that country. The Asia Society was founded in New York in 1956 by John D. Rockefeller the third, because coming nine or ten years after World War II and the tremendous anti-Japanese and anti-Asian sentiment in the United States, I think Rockefeller said we need to have some sort of an institution to develop a level of knowledge and understanding of Asia and that was part of the rationale for starting the Asia Society; The Asia Society today is well endowed in New York. We are modeling ourselves after the Asia Society. The difference is, we haven't found a visionary and a philanthropist with the deep pockets of a John D. Rockefeller.
And the purpose?
The Africa Society will focus on educating Americans about Africa. We're going to do that through a series of educational programs that we call 'Teach Africa'. There will be a web site for children - k through 12 students. A Black encyclopedia online. There will be a series of publications. There will be a series of workshops around the country. And we're going to do all of these things through state affiliates that are becoming 501C 3s [tax exempt organizations] and the state affiliates represent an outgrowth of the state delegations to the National Summit on Africa. The first state to become a state affiliate was Arizona. Arizona is a state affiliate, Maryland, Virginia, New Jersey's on line, Connecticut is on line, and Massachusetts is on stream. So, we are holding onto and maintaining daily contact with the 22,000 people in our database who represent those Americans and Africans who were part of the National Summit on Africa process. So, the Africa Society, a direct outgrowth of the National Summit on Africa process, is an attempt to capture the energy and momentum coming out of the summit process with the vision of working through this infrastructure throughout the United States to continue to educate and inform Americans every day about Africa.
There is also a cultural side to this. We have formed partnerships with the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts - the 'African Odyssey' series - and the Smithsonian. We will exhibit around America, in partnership with the Smithsonian and the Kennedy Center, the performing arts and the visual arts of Africa. Because Americans don't know about the rich cultures that you have in Africa. With Howard University we have a speakers forum that is usually covered by CSPAN to feature prominent Africans in both the private and the public sector.
How do you respond to what can either be voiced as criticism or a simple question: Why is another Africa interest group needed? Aren't you just taking money away from the half dozen or whatever number that exist already? Why is another structure needed out here saying 'give me some money to do something good for Africa?'
I think we have to step back and look at - why was the National Summit created in the first place? The national summit really grew out of the White House Conference on Africa that was initiated by President Clinton in 1994. And one of the things the President, the late Ron Brown, the Vice President - at that time Al Gore, and other cabinet members said to the assembled participants was that with the end of the cold war, the United States - Washington - was going to make very different decisions about how it conducted its foreign policy and how limited foreign assistance resources were to be allocated. We knew at that time that Africa - with respect to our foreign policy - was on the back of the back burner. And Clinton and the late Ron Brown said there has to be a way we can begin to build across the country some sort of prominent constituency - a vocal, effective, sustained, reliable constituency for Africa.
Look at the record. The African Development Foundation which I headed up for seven years as its first President - when I left the Foundation in 1990 the annual congressional appropriations was almost US$17m. By the middle of 1990 it had retrogressed to $10m. There's so many things Africa-related that I could point to that had been either significantly reduced or been completely wiped off the map. And so there was a degree of accuracy with respect to the state of Africa in the United States with respect to a broad constituency base. And so the summit in part was designed to stimulate that constituency, to expand that constituency and to come up with this national plan of action, which was approved at the National Summit.
I believe that Africa is large enough and needs so much support in the United States. As [Algerian] President Bouteflika said at our luncheon [July 13] the United States 'has an opportunity' because it was not a colonial power in Africa. There is trust. There is confidence that Africans have - and admiration quite frankly - that Africans have for the United States. And I think there is a golden opportunity here for the United States to really develop because there's a sea change in the attitude of African leaders and what's happening on the continent in terms of moving forward into the new millennium. They [African leaders] are almost panicked if you will, about not being left at the train station. They know the train is roaring down the track - modern technology, computer technology, the information age - and they clearly want to do something about it now. I believe that there is enough room in the United States for all the Africa-related organizations. But they should coordinate among themselves. They should talk to each other. And part of the raison d'etre of the National Summit on Africa was to foster this cooperation and this communication. I do not intend - Andy Young is the Chair of our revised board - we do not intend to create another poor Africa-focused organization - financially poor. And one of the things that we have been very careful to do is to carve out a specific niche. We, through the medium of education, will focus on educating all Americans about Africa. We are not going to be engaged in promoting trade and investment between America and Africa. That's the Corporate Council on Africa. We will not be engaged in being the point of the lance on any lobbying effort with respect to Africa. That is the Constituency for Africa; that is to some extent APIC and the Africa Fund. The Africa-America Institute focuses in on providing educational opportunities for Africans here in the United States and elsewhere. We have looked at it very carefully. We believe that we fill a significant void by focusing in on education.
Education on Africa is taught in very very few school systems throughout the United States. Education on Africa for American primary and secondary students happens in very few schools in this country. One of the universal recommendations coming out of the National Summit on Africa process is the recommendation that in every school district in America the state school boards of education, the municipal school boards of education adopt a curriculum that will ensure that education on Africa is taught. How is that going to be done? Well we have formed a partnership with the Southern Center for International Studies. A text book has been written by them and an instructional video has been produced by them and we are going in partnership with the Southern Center for International Studies to provide teacher training for teachers across America so that they will have the tools necessary to go into the classroom and teach about Africa. But even before that happens, being able to be able to teach this it has to be facilitated by boards of education adopting the policy to include Africa education at the primary and secondary school level. That's another reason why state affiliates are so important to the Africa Society. The state affiliates working in concert with local municipalities will take the necessary steps to get the school boards in the municipalities and at the state level to adopt those policies.
Elaborate on your methods.
I think you have to pay attention to detail. You have to form partnerships. We have an open door policy. We will work with anybody and everybody. We have partnerships with Interaction, with the World Affairs Council, with AAI, with the Corporate Council on Africa, with the National Education Association, the National Peace Corps Association. In other words we have continued to work with the infrastructure that we tapped into as a consequence of the National Summit process. We realize that we cannot do it all. We've downsized considerably. I have now discovered that we can do a lot of things without having a very large staff. But it will be essential for the state affiliates - working with the state affiliates we will plan workshops on general information about Africa. That will be for all kinds of audiences, for all kinds of participants. We will have specific workshops on the cultural aspects of Africa. It might be on a particular ethnic group. It might be on trade and investment - not from the standpoint of us promoting trade and investment but talking about the commercial opportunities in Africa. You know when I make speeches, when I tell people why Africa is important to the United States, when I tell them that we are dependent upon Africa for 13 to 17 percent of our petrol, they don't know these things. That 200,000 to 250,000 Americans are employed as a consequence of our trade with Africa. So, we are simply taking what we did and learned through the summit process, through seminars, through workshops, working with local organizations - to take the message, the educational message through a series of seminars and workshops organized in concert with the Africa Society secretariat based here in Washington, D.C. and the various local and state organizations around the country.
And the money and resources to do this? Have you been able to get it? There was certainly considerable corporate and foundation backing for the National Summit; what about now?
The National Summit on Africa process cost about 8 million dollars in round figures. The lions share of that came from the Ford Foundation and the rest from the Carneigie Corporation. For some of the regional summits we did receive corporate support, for lunches and things like that. For the National Summit we got quite a lot of corporate support. The Ford Foundation made it very clear that we were going to have to develop a very strong financial base with other foundations and other corporations before they would provide any additional grant assistance to us. We have been going through a transition for a little over a year now. But I am pleased to say that financing is in place. We have received multi-year pledges from a number of corporations We have completely revamped our board of directors. Our Board is now a cross-section of corporate executives, foundation executives, people from the private sector and academia. We also have six people on our board who were elected by the various regions around the country - we have six regions throughout the United States. Money is always difficult to obtain for Africa. Our budget for the current year is slightly over one million dollars. I think that can be increased next year as a number of the corporate pledges come in. We are looking at a broad range of corporate financial support. Citibank and Anadako, one of the largest petroleum corporations in the world, were sponsors of our luncheon for [Algeria's]President Bouteflika. We have Coca Cola, Discovery Communications, ADM and we think Eastman Kodak is going to be one of our sponsors. And we expect a number of foundations, including Rockefeller, will be very much supportive of the work of the Africa Society.
Let me shift gears a little bit and ask you about what appears to be the rather surprising energy of the Bush Administration around Africa issues. Are you surprised by this energy? Or am I right in even characterizing it as "energy"? Is it a continuation of the Clinton Administration or are we looking at something new vis a vis the White House and Africa?
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I think in part you are looking at realpolitik. During the campaign, and shortly after President Bush was inaugurated he and his advisors continued to make pronouncements which led all of us to believe that in their engagement with foreign policy Africa was going to take a back seat. But in the past four or five months it has been very clear that the administration cannot put Africa in the back seat.
With respect to Africa, I really believe that there are two dynamics at play. One, you have the Secretary of State, General Colin Powell. He made it very clear dsuring the campaign, and he has made it abundantly clear since he was sworn in as Secretary of State, that he is interested in Africa. Before he was sworn in, the first meeting he had at the State Department was with the Bureau of African Affairs. I think he consciously sent a very strong signal about his interest in Africa. About four months ago he responded definitively to the question of an ABC television news correspondent, are you interested in Africa? I am an American of African decent. Of course I'm interested in Africa. [Ed Note: Asked by ABC's Cokie Roberts February 4, if he felt a "connection" to Africa, Powell responded: "I am African. My roots are Africa. But my roots are mankind and womankind, so we cannot ignore any place in the world. And Africa is a huge continent in great need."] He has been to Africa already and it is my understanding that he wants to go to Africa a second time before the end of the year. Look at the number of African heads of state who have been through Washington, D.C. already. And I know how difficult it is to get an appointment with the President of the United States, especially if you're from the continent of Africa. Usually that's done three, four months in advance. Secondly, my sense is that the Bush Administration looked at what the Clinton Administration did and said we're not going to be outdone - we're not going to be outdone by what Clinton did. But I also think they looked at it very pragmatically: here is what the Clinton Administration did. They raised the profile of Africa in the United States. There is no question that they raised the level of [Africa's] visibility. And I think they began to raise the level of respect for Africa in the United States. Look at the media coverage Africa gets today versus three years ago. It's still not as balanced as I'd like for it to be but I see more human interest stories in the Washington Post and other newspapers coming out about Africa. There was a story the other day about a casket maker in Ghana; that would not have happened two or three years ago. I think that the press traveling to Africa with Clinton, especially the first time, they saw things in Africa that they had never seen before and they discovered that there are human beings over there. They discovered that there are people in Africa with cultures that are very dynamic and interesting. Now there is still a long way to go. When you ask about Africa in a press conference, or if you make it known that you are an expert on Africa, people still tend to look at you and ask "Why?" They're puzzled that you are so interested in Africa. I think the Bush administration made a smart decision to build upon what the Clinton administration did. And it is important to remember that in the Clinton administration, Africa was fully integrated across bureaucratic lines in every department, in every agency. You're talking almost eight years worth of that sort of infrastructure being built up. It's difficult to just ignore that. So, instead of Bush just signing at his desk the legislation committing the United States to an annual U.S.-Africa economic forum he chose to have a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden. Secretary Powell was there, the U.S. Trade Secretary was there, Rosa Whittaker was there, Condoleeza Rice was there. Again, he sent a very strong message. How this is going to evolve over time in terms of U.S.-Africa foreign policy remains to be seen.
What will we see in the next budget for Africa?
This is where those Africa-focused organizations that are lobbyists in the purest form need to get busy. Bread for the World and a faith-based coalition of organizations and organizations like the Africa Society are involved in this campaign to impact on poverty and hunger reduction in Africa. And the goal is to see if we can get Congress to get behind a one billion dollar commitment to Africa for the next fiscal year. I am happy to report that there is bipartisan support for this. Now on the heels of what happened last year with the debt relief coalition and the successful AGOA coalition leading to the passage and signing of the AGOA legislation, there is now real concrete evidence that we can get some things done for Africa.
