African Diaspora Ministerial Conference

(BuaNews)-President Thabo Mbeki will on Friday address Africans from both the African continent and abroad, at the three-day African Diaspora Ministerial Conference to be held in Midrand. The conference will be opened by South African Foreign Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma and Chairperson of the Africa Union Professor Alpha Konare.

Delegates from Africa, Latin America, North America, the United Kingdom, Europe, the Caribbean, including a number of African foreign ministers will to produce a framework, programme of action and draft declaration.

This declaration will then be presented to the Heads of State Summit in 2008.

The conference is part of a build-up towards the Summit of Heads of State and Government of the African Union (AU) and the African Diaspora scheduled to be held in South Africa in the first half of 2008.

Ms Dlamini-Zuma said the programme of action will include lobbying for financial and technical support, coordination and ownership of the African Diaspora and the integration of programmes for vulnerable groups.

“The AU has declared the African Diaspora as the 6th region of the AU, as it connects Africa, the Mother Continent with all the Africans outside its borders.

“It symbolically defines what binds us together, who we are, what values we share, as well as to amass our collective strength and wisdom as Africans.

“There is an increasing global attention on Africans in the Diaspora, as their influence not only in terms of skills, but their financial impact is now being acknowledged as an alternative source of funding as part of the development of the continent,” said Minister Dlamini-Zuma.

The 2008 African Diaspora Summit will aim to create sustainable partnerships between the African Diaspora and Africa through a Programme of Action which can be realised.

<< Back to main