Dakar, Senegal – On June 2nd, 2009, IFP alumni leaders from Africa and the Middle East and staff from New York, Ghana and Senegal gathered for the first Africa Regional Alumni Leadership Conference in the Senegalese capital, Dakar. The regional conference provided a forum for IFP alumni to meet one another and discuss opportunities for collaboration in the field of social justice, while receiving further training in leadership and topics such as education, human rights and governance. The four-day meeting combined thematic presentations from outside speakers, including Dr. Yacob Haile-Mariam (Former Senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda), Dr. Akwasi Aidoo (Executive Director of
TrustAfrica) and Ms. Molly Melching (Founder of
Tostan) with organizational seminars on how to strengthen the national organizations and regional networks of the Africa alumni.
Dr. Damtew Teferra, IFP Director for Africa and the Middle East, gave the welcome address. Dr. Teferra described IFP Fellows as “conscientious and devoted citizens in their communities and countries” and noted that by the end of the program, Africa will have more than 1,000 Fellows pursue social justice programs through IFP. The keynote address, delivered by IFP Executive Director Dr. Joan Dassin, highlighted the dynamics of the IFP program and its potential as a trailblazer in addressing social justice through and with higher education. In her presentation, Dr. Dassin referred to the currently popular book on development aid,
Dead Aid, authored by Dambisa Moyo (2009). IFP presentations were also delivered by Ambassador Donald F. McHenry (Chairman of the IFF Board) and Ms. Araba Botchway (IFP Coordinator, Ghana).
Guest speaker Dr. Yacob Haile-Mariam, presented a powerful account of social justice issues in the context of governance in Africa, under the heading “Political leadership: Autocracy vs. Democracy.” Dr. Haile-Mariam, the former Senior Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, was a political prisoner condemned to life imprisonment before he was commuted by the government. His presentation focused on the ongoing challenges of establishing democracy and the rule of law in the region.
Dr. Akwasi Aidoo of TrustAfrica spoke on the role of civil society in promoting social justice. He noted Africa’s challenge in aligning development with democracy and provided his own perspective on the book
Dead Aid, discussed by Dr. Dassin. Dr. Aidoo’s organization, TrustAfrica, works to cultivate democracy and development in Africa.
Professor John Ssebuwufu, the research director of the
Association of African Universities and the coordinator of IFP for the subregion, spoke on the need and urgency to re-envision tertiary education in Africa. He gave a broad account of the higher education landscape in Africa from historical, economic and global perspectives. He spoke on the challenges the continent faces in the emerging knowledge economy and the urgent need for boosting human capacity building. He stressed the need to focus on equity while efforts focus on expanding access and building capacity.
Another guest speaker, Ms. Molly Melching, delivered a presentation on her work fighting Gender-Based Violence. She spoke highly of community-led, as opposed to community-based, developments and shared some remarkable figures that highlighted the achievements of the past decade. Among the statistics she cited: nearly half of all Senegalese villages known to practice Female Genital Cutting (FGC) have given up the practice in the past 10 years; and in 2007, Mali, Burkina Faso, Kenya, Egypt, and Eritrea made progress towards ending FGC in their countries. Ms. Melching is the founder and Executive Director of
Tostan (meaning "breakthrough" or “spread of knowledge” in the Wolof language), an NGO which aims to empower African communities for sustainable development and social transformation in the respect of human rights.
IFP alumni also presented at the conference. Representatives from Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Palestine, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda reported on the activities and future plans of the alumni associations in their respective countries. These presentations allowed alumni to make sound comparisons and begin to develop best practices for social justice activities in Africa and the Middle East.