Washington, DC — The Ford Foundation's 'Special Initiative for Africa' completed its first cycle of meetings this month with a session focusing on citizenship and identity, held in Addis Ababa.
Two previous meetings have been held, one in Addis in November 2002 on regional integration in Africa and one in Maputo, Mozambique, on Africa's conflicts and peace building efforts in June 2002.
Some 60 people of diverse origins working all over the continent and beyond gathered in Addis June 8-12 to discuss the many problems related to citizenship and identity in Africa and to propose practical steps that might be taken to strengthen citizenship rights and responsibilities and to build acceptance for a more complex range of identities than have found recognition in the past.
The group included creative writers, journalists, business people, academics and community activists among others, bringing a fascinating mix of perspectives to the debate (a full list of all SIA participants during the past year can be viewed at http://allafrica.com/peaceafrica/sia/participants.html').
As participants got down to serious debate about how and why ideas of identity may fuel conflict, how citizenship can be abused by politicians and a host of other issues, it became clear that for most people, the issues at stake were as much personal as political.
Many spoke of the difficulty of trying to reconcile diverse claims of identity and belonging, of rejection or misunderstanding within communities over issues of identity and of the challenge of asserting citizenship rights where governments seem determined to restrict access to those rights, not only across African borders but for the African diaspora trying to remain rooted in Africa.
Although there was no formal agenda, each of the small discussion groups followed similar paths, although giving greater emphasis to some issues according to their composition. Some focused much attention on the tensions and misunderstandings between African and Arab in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa; others invested much time in the contribution that artists and creative workers could make, while all gave particular attention to the identity problems and citizenship rights of women and children.
Speakers addressing the plenary sessions included Dr Joe Oloka-Onyango, Associate Professor of law at Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda and Professor Mahmood Mamdani, head of Columbia University African Studies Program in New York. South Africa writer Breyten Breytenbach, Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah and Ghanaian authors, Ama Ata Aidoo and Abena Busia gave readings.
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Convened by the Ford Foundation, the SIA aims to support a group of African individuals and organisations who are trying to consolidate African leadership in peace building across the continent, and to develop effective strategies for integrating the continents institutions, treaties and peoples.
The Initiative's director, the Ford Foundation's Akwasi Aidoo, has been the moving spirit behind the project, supported by other colleagues in the Foundation. Two Ford vice-presidents, Brad Smith (Vice President, Peace and Social Justice) and Alison Bernstein (Vice President, Knowledge, Creativity and Freedom), travelled from New York to participate in the meeting.
The SIA was launched in November 2001 with the goal of combining convenings, grantmaking and partnership building to strengthen African solutions to some of the most intractable challenges facing Africa, namely peace and security, identity and citizenship, and regional integration.
The Initiative is expected to develop into a self-sustaining African foundation that models institutional accountability and promotes Africa-wide partnerships in pursuing African solutions to major challenges. Currently located at the Ford Foundation head office in New York, the initiative will move to Africa at the end of 2004, when the transition to a foundation will begin. More information is available at http://allafrica.com/peaceafrica/sia/about.html.
Joe Oloka-Onyango's paper is available here'.A report of the proceedings and outcomes of the meeting in Addis will be made public in due course.
