Post by Onyango Oloo on Apr 18, 2006 22:17:34 GMT 3
THIS TEXT is from Oxfam, which is organizing the event.
Social movements, African and International Civil Society Organisations: Is it time for a new way of working together?
A conversation ahead of the World Social Forum, January 2007, AACC Conference Centre, Waiyaki Way, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya
5.30 - 7.00, Thursday 20th April 2006
Panelists:
Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Deputy Director for Africa, UN
Millennium Campaign
Muthoni Wanyeki, Director, African Womens' Development and
Communication Network (FEMNET)
Onyango Oloo, Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum
Moderator: Irungu Houghton, Pan Africa Policy Advisor, Oxfam
This conversation takes place in a particular context.
African growth rates of 4-5% are not transforming the lives of 350 million people who continue to live and struggle in abject poverty. More worrying still is these growth rates are translating into wider class, gender and spatial inequalities, not least of all for Kenya. 2006 will see the roll out of new African Union continental rights instruments, mechanisms and standards on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, social protection, gender equality, peace-keeping and good governance. The 2005 international commitments to
Africa have their first test in 2007 as the mid-way point of the
commitments of the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs. 2007 will also see the World Social Forum take place in Kenya, the advent of preparations around the 50th independence of the Guinean and Ghanaian independence (the first countries that attained independence in the wave of countries in the fifties and sixties) and 200 years since the abolition of slavery.
As this context unfolds, what do African social movements, civil society organisations, regional and international Non Governmental Organisations have in common?
What common visions and agenda could be harnessed?
What tensions exist and how could they be best managed to collectively address the impoverishment and the exclusion of communities and policy neglect at national and international levels?
How should social movements, African and International Civil Society Organisations best relate to the African state and regional institutions like the African Union?
These issues and more will be the subject of this exciting conversation
Notes on the Speakers:
Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is well known in African and international circles as a political analyst and writer. His provocative weekly post-card is read in several newspapers across the continent and in Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org). As General Secretary of the Pan African Movement, he helped organize the 7th Pan African Congress in Kampala, Uganda. A
Nigerian, he has recently joined the UN Millennium Campaign as Deputy Director for Africa
Onyango Oloo recently returned home from Canada after many years of building communities of progressive activists working on Kenyan and diaspora issues. He is the newly appointed Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum and a member of the Eastern African Organizing committee for the World Social Forum scheduled to take place in Nairobi in January 2007.
Muthoni Wanyeki is the Director of the leading pan African women's
association, The African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET). In this role she has supported the collective advocacy of NGOs on issues as diverse as Darfur, women's rights, communications and global G8 policy reform. She is also a leading commentator through her weekly column in the East African newspaper.
___________________________________
Social movements, African and International Civil Society Organisations: Is it time for a new way of working together?
A conversation ahead of the World Social Forum, January 2007, AACC Conference Centre, Waiyaki Way, Westlands, Nairobi, Kenya
5.30 - 7.00, Thursday 20th April 2006
Panelists:
Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Deputy Director for Africa, UN
Millennium Campaign
Muthoni Wanyeki, Director, African Womens' Development and
Communication Network (FEMNET)
Onyango Oloo, Coordinator, Kenya Social Forum
Moderator: Irungu Houghton, Pan Africa Policy Advisor, Oxfam
This conversation takes place in a particular context.
African growth rates of 4-5% are not transforming the lives of 350 million people who continue to live and struggle in abject poverty. More worrying still is these growth rates are translating into wider class, gender and spatial inequalities, not least of all for Kenya. 2006 will see the roll out of new African Union continental rights instruments, mechanisms and standards on HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria, social protection, gender equality, peace-keeping and good governance. The 2005 international commitments to
Africa have their first test in 2007 as the mid-way point of the
commitments of the Millennium Declaration and the MDGs. 2007 will also see the World Social Forum take place in Kenya, the advent of preparations around the 50th independence of the Guinean and Ghanaian independence (the first countries that attained independence in the wave of countries in the fifties and sixties) and 200 years since the abolition of slavery.
As this context unfolds, what do African social movements, civil society organisations, regional and international Non Governmental Organisations have in common?
What common visions and agenda could be harnessed?
What tensions exist and how could they be best managed to collectively address the impoverishment and the exclusion of communities and policy neglect at national and international levels?
How should social movements, African and International Civil Society Organisations best relate to the African state and regional institutions like the African Union?
These issues and more will be the subject of this exciting conversation
Notes on the Speakers:
Dr. Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem is well known in African and international circles as a political analyst and writer. His provocative weekly post-card is read in several newspapers across the continent and in Pambazuka News (www.pambazuka.org). As General Secretary of the Pan African Movement, he helped organize the 7th Pan African Congress in Kampala, Uganda. A
Nigerian, he has recently joined the UN Millennium Campaign as Deputy Director for Africa
Onyango Oloo recently returned home from Canada after many years of building communities of progressive activists working on Kenyan and diaspora issues. He is the newly appointed Coordinator of the Kenya Social Forum and a member of the Eastern African Organizing committee for the World Social Forum scheduled to take place in Nairobi in January 2007.
Muthoni Wanyeki is the Director of the leading pan African women's
association, The African Women's Development and Communication Network (FEMNET). In this role she has supported the collective advocacy of NGOs on issues as diverse as Darfur, women's rights, communications and global G8 policy reform. She is also a leading commentator through her weekly column in the East African newspaper.
___________________________________