Press Conference by Pan-African Parliament on Diaspora Summit

 In an effort to mobilize the potential of the African diaspora to help revitalize their ancestral homeland and spur the growth and empowerment of people of African descent worldwide, the African Union would organize a first-ever global summit on the topic in May, the President of the Pan-African Parliament said today at Headquarters.

Highlighting several related events during a press conference, Moussa Idriss Ndélé told reporters that, ahead of the 25 May summit, to be held in Midrand, South Africa, the 235-member Parliament would host a preparatory conference Thursday, 16 February, at the Permanent Observer Mission of the African Union to the United Nations in New York.

The participants — parliamentarians from Africa and the African diaspora, as well as prominent members of civil society — would discuss the format, agenda and expected outcomes of the May conference.  Dr. Ndélé went on to say that the conference would be preceded by a two-day African parliamentary diaspora forum, also in Midrand, aiming to “bring the diaspora closer to the African Union and see how they could contribute to support for [wider] Africa.”

The culmination of all those events would be another first; an African Union Summit in June 2012 with and about the African diaspora.  He said that the Summit was to be held at the Head of State level and followed up the aim of the African Union, as set out it its Constitutive Act, to “invite and encourage the full participation of the African diaspora as an important part of our continent, in the building of the African Union”.

Responding to several questions, Dr. Ndélé stressed that “diaspora” covered all people of African origin living outside the continent, irrespective of their citizenship or nationality.  He said that the diaspora had contributed much to the African continent, including through the respective struggles to end colonization and eradicate racism worldwide.

People of African descent, a diverse and multifaceted demographic dispersed across all continents, could contribute positively to growth and development in Africa, he said.  With that in mind, one of the main goals of the conference was to create partnerships and networks between African-based legislators and those in diaspora communities.

“We must bring them together,” to see how they could contribute economically, politically and many other ways, he said.  Dr. Ndélé was joined at the press conference by Pan-African Parliament Vice-President Laroussi Hammi, who responded to questions posed in French and Arabic.

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For information media • not an official record

SOURCE:
http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs//2012/120215_Africa.doc.htm