This year’s National Teacher’s Workshop on Africa sponsored by the Nelson D. Delavan foundation was held in Washington DC, from June 20-23.  There were 16 participants from High Schools in Pennsylvania, Montana, Texas, California, Illinois, Florida, and Georgia.

The 3 day workshop was a resounding success! We could not have asked for better weather, more enthusiastic teachers or a more enthusiastic and highly experienced group of speakers. The combination of intense thought provoking discussions with the great site visits was a good balance for the workshop. The teachers left with a pledge to apply for next year’s workshop!

The workshop began with a trip to the National Museum of African Art where the teachers were greeted and shown around by Ms. Veronika Jenke one of the head curators. Later that evening, a reception was held at the Hotel Lombardy where the teachers were staying to welcome everyone and was followed by dinner with Ambassador William C. and Mrs. Ann Harrop of the Delavan Foundation, the generous sponsors of the Workshop.

Ambassador Harrop spoke on the “Past, Present and Future of Africa.” His brilliant speech was a great opener for what was to be a very successful workshop! Although the Africa in Transition series was a backdrop for this workshop, it was by no means a workshop on how to teach the series. Rather, it was meant to provide additional information and content material on Africa and to help broaden the existing scope of the teacher’s knowledge of Africa.

Much like our participants, our speakers were a diverse group of people from the academic, non governmental, governmental and the private sectors.

Dr. George Ayittey of American University spoke on “Why Africa is Poor.” He stated the importance of recognizing that Africa is a continent, not a country. According to Dr. Ayittey, Africa’s problems stem from the failure of two important systems: political and economic. He explained that the political and economic systems implemented by most governments after independence were defective because they were western models applied to African systems, with disregard to the culture and way of life of individual countries. Dr. Ayittey argued that the political systems which created presidents for life with absolute power, and the economic system which strangulated the economy and facilitated bribery and corruption, are the reasons why Africa is still poor.

Ambassador Mark Johnson welcomed us at the U.S. Department of State. Everyone was impressed with the prominence of the building and our friendly escorts. Ambassador Johnson spoke to us about U.S. - Africa relations. Having served as Ambassador in Senegal, he was also able to shed some light on Senegal’s growth and development in spite of tough challenges. Ambassador Johnson, implored us not to always think of Africa in pessimistic terms but to also look at individual success stories like Senegal and Botswana.

The teachers had the pleasure of having lunch in one of the beautiful and distinguished dining rooms at the State Department. Jason Smalls, the assistant to Secretary Ranneberger, spoke to the teachers about the Darfur crisis. He explained how the Janjaweed had been formed by the government of Sudan to serve as a counter insurgent militia group. The Janjaweed is now responsible for most of the violence leading to the death of 2 million and the displacement of 4 million others. Mr. Smalls answered questions about the international community’s slow response to Darfur and about Sudan’s role in the “war on terror.” It was a most satisfying lunch in more ways than one.

Next, we turned to the World Bank for an economic view of Africa. Mr. John Donaldson spoke to us about “Debt Relief in Africa.”  He explained that the role of the World Bank in Development had changed with James Wolfensohn’s tenure as head of the bank when it had shifted its focus to Human Development and to helping countries reach the Millennium Development Goals. He stated that the new bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, has been passionate about empowering women and involving individuals in the lending process rather than dealing only with governments. Mr. Donaldson shared the bank’s move to develop practices and programs that are very effective and cater to the people for whom they were made with the teachers. 

John Hatch of FINCA international, a microenterprise organization, told us exactly how they were doing what the World Bank is now trying to do: empowering women and entrusting them with small loans to start businesses. Mr. Hatch explained that the loans were very small and meant for very poor people. He shared the disturbing fact that 1.2 billion humans are living on a daily per capita income of less than $1 a day and out of the 6 billion people in the world, 45% live on less than $2 a day. Poverty is killing 29,000 children all over the world with a majority in Africa and 10.5 million die needlessly each year. He explained that FINCA’s work was based on studies which have shown that when women are in charge of finances or have a source of livelihood, children are well catered for and domestic violence decreases. The workshop was a fitting place for Mr. Hatch to tell us about his commitment to a new initiative; to engage students to actively help in the quest to eliminate poverty. ASAP; Alliance of Students Against Poverty created by Natalie Portman aspires to get students to donate $1 a day to help others.

The teachers also had an opportunity to visit the embassy of the Kingdom of Morocco where we met with the DCM, Aicha Afifi. Ms Afifi talked to the teachers about the role of women in Morocco, their level of education and their participation in the political arena while we drank Moroccan green tea and ate delicious hors d'oeuvres. She explained how Morocco had taken a unique approach toward getting the religious leaders to recognize that the Koran does not forbid the active participation of women in all social and political spheres. She stated that this phenomenal achievement had helped propel women into top positions in any field of their choice and is one of the reasons Morocco is an exception to the perpetuation of traditional roles of Muslim women today. The teachers were pleasantly surprised when Ms. Afifi produced a letter that proved that the Kingdom of Morocco had been the first to recognize the United States as an independent state by giving it the same rights to its ports as it had done other sovereign states!

Raymond Baker of the Brookings Institution shed some light on “Corruption and Governance in Africa.” He argued that although it is necessary to provide more foreign aid, more debt relief and more free trade agreements to African countries, it is more important to curtail western nations receipt of the illicit money that pours from the continent into our coffers. He illustrated how mis-pricing, mispackaging, tax evasion, and illegal money transfers among other things are to blame for huge profits made by corporations and their cronies in Africa. According to Mr. Baker, millions of dollars in dirty money; illegally earned and transferred money, are deposited into foreign accounts all over the world by corrupt government officials and presidents. In a Q&A session, Mr. Baker stated that the West had created a system which facilitated the spread of Multi National Corporations (MNC). These MNC’s in turn facilitate money laundering structures and tax havens which make it possible to shift large sums of money to offshore secrecy accounts. Mr. Baker ended by saying that Africa has the resources and the means to support itself but most of its income is being exported to foreign banks enriching those countries and starving out the rightful owners.

World Vision expert Rory Anderson spoke about “conflicts in Africa” with emphasis on Uganda and the Darfur crisis. She explained that most of the conflicts are localized, civilians are often targeted and there is usually a resulting humanitarian crisis. She clarified that the government of Khartoum was not the same as the government of Sudan because it is a military junta group and does not represent the people of Sudan but rather their own personal interests. Ms. Anderson stated that the conflict in the northern part of Sudan had been a case of Muslims against Muslims, black versus Arab whereas the conflict in the South had been Muslims against Christians which had had different dynamics to it. She also spoke about the plight of children who are captured and made soldiers and how difficult it was for them to address the atrocities they had committed, and to reintegrate into society. She left us with the quote “Silence empowers injustice.  Speaking out sparks change” and encouraged us all to what little we could to get international community to act to stop the bloodshed.

We heard about the effect of HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria on Africa from Nicole Bates of the Global Health Council. Ms. Bates started us off with the declaration that over 40 million people in the world are infected with HIV and of those70% are in Africa. She explained that this high occurrence rate was due to the mostly heterosexual transmission of the disease. According to Ms. Bates, the spread of HIV/AIDS, TB and Malaria are perpetuating poverty in Africa. 1,500 people die daily from Tuberculosis. She explained how crucial it was to be conscious of culture when working in Africa and provided several examples to illustrate her point. Ms. Anderson also spoke about the President’s malaria initiative which targets 15 countries to receive aid over a period of 5 years.

Dr. J. Stephen Morrison, Director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, spoke to us about Botswana’s success story. He attributed this success to a few factors: Size; personalized politics; religious influence; and ethnic homogeneity. Dr. Morrison argued that the size of Botswana had allowed it to take on initiatives that had worked to its advantage. Also because it was a protectorate and was ruled by indirect rule, the aristocratic culture had not been crushed. The current Botswana state model allows for elite accommodation, enlightened democracy and a proto state. Dr Morrison also spoke about the huge urban and employment disparities but also mentioned how Botswana had made great strides in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS. He explained that the government had been successful because it had studied the following factors: migratory patterns; circumcision; vulnerable girls; and the culture of silence. Dr Morrison’s final statement was that, the United States has historically treated the continent of Africa as a charity case deserving compassion and pity. He explained that even though humanitarian action is in our nature, our aid gives the impression that the people of Africa are hopeless and there is no good thing coming out of Africa. He suggested that the teachers read a book put out by CSIS, More than Humanitarianism: A Strategic US Approach toward Africa which he was kind enough to bring copies of. 

Last but certainly not the least; we had Dr. Olayiwola Abegunrin, a native of Nigeria and professor at Howard University, talk to us about his country. Dr. Abegunrin explained that after independence states were created with each state having its own government, state assembly and a bicameral government. Dr. Abegunrin mentioned that some of the major issues facing the current government were corruption, recovering money stolen by the military rulers, establishment of the rule of law, reforming the economy of Nigeria and ensuring political stability. He also stressed that most of the problems with corruption rested in officials like the governors who on most occasions are not able to account for the money assigned to their states. He cited several examples where large sums of money which had been stolen by governors and deposited into foreign accounts had been recovered by the Obasanjo government. Dr. Abegunrin stated that Nigeria has a long way to go, but the current government appears to be headed in the right direction in their quest to right the wrongs in the system.

The teachers also had the added the pleasure of visiting National Geographic where they were introduced to WACA collaboration, “My Wonderful World,” and shown the tools that were available to teachers and students to help facilitate the teaching of different regions better.