Building peace in Africa

human security and the millennium development goals

22 October 2005, conference report (0.5 MB)

African Students' Conference 2006

The 7^th annual ASC was held on Saturday 22 October 2005 at the Institute of Social Studies (ISS) in The Hague and was organized according to a dense and exhilarating programme.

The day started at 9.45 with a Welcome addressed by Prof. Louk de la Rive Box, Rector of the Institute of Social Studies. His speech was followed by opening remarks of Eva Nazziwa and Hilary Jeune, representing The African Committee and UNOY respectively. The first two keynote speeches were delivered by Jan Gustav Strandenaes and professor Kevin Clements. Strandenaes gave an overview of the origins and development of the Millennium Summit and the MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) while Prof. Clements focused on shedding more light onto the concept of human security and peacebuilding.

Hafsat Abiola, a youth and human rights activist, gave a powerful presentation about the plight of African women, sharing her own personal life experience as lessons to learn from. The last morning speaker was Charity Musamba, an articulate, bright and well informed activist from Zambia who shared practical experiences of what governments and civil society organisations do to achieve the MDGs.

The afternoon session featured a presentation by Guido de Graaf Bierbrauwer of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC) and presentations by four youths - Ama van Dantzig, Dino Abdurashid Abdella, Sahro Mohamed and Sayida Vanenburg. Thereafter, Anika May spoke about UNOYs recent engagement at the United Nations in New York where it presented the Midterm Review Report on a Culture of Peace, and also about the follow up event of the conference to be held on 19 November 2005. UNOY coordinator Hans Ola Haavelsrud and TAC student member Tanko Yussif contributed with short yet articulate closing remarks.

The presence of African drummers lent a strong African feeling to the event, while the short movie Hope was an eloquent reminder of the importance of believing in hope and in the possibility of change. With almost 250 participants at this years conference, the speakers, workshop facilitators, staff, and in particular the participants all felt that it was a great success.

Working Group Overview

The following seven Working Groups were arranged during the Conference:

Poverty and Hunger
Facilitator: Bashir Hussein, Somali Centre for Development Research, Somalia
Education
Facilitator: Sahro Mohamed, UNOY Peacebuilders, Somalia
Gender Equality
Facilitator: Hafsat Abiola, KIND, Nigeria
Health HIV/AIDS
Facilitators: Iris Shiripinda, Institute for Gender Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Zimbabwe; Gerda Dommerholt, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Netherlands
Environment
Facilitator: Charity Musamba, JUBILEE 2000, Zambia
Global Networks
Facilitator: Jan Gustav Strandenaes, ANPED, Norway
Peace and Security
Facilitator: Kevin Clements, Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies - University of Queensland, Australia

Speakers

Professor Kevin Clements, Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies. Professor Kevin Clements, whose interests are in development and peacebuilding, conflict prevention, peace theory and security sector reform, joined ACPACS in September 2003. He was head of the Peace Research Centre at the Australian National University, Canberra Australia and a Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Coordinator of Peace Studies at Canterbury University, Christchurch New Zealand. In the mid 1980s he was Director of the Quaker United Nations Office in Geneva and a member of the New Zealand Delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
Prof. Clements also served as President of the International Peace Research Association, President of the IPRA Foundation and Secretary General of the Asia Pacific Peace Research Association. He has been an advisor on defense, security and conflict issues to a range of governmental and non-governmental organisations in Australasia, the United States and Europe and Chairman, Facilitator and keynote speaker at many international Peace and Conflict Resolution conferences over the past 20 years. His presentation during the ASC 2005 evolved around the theme of The Quest for Human Security: Global Governance, Development and Peacebuilding.

Ms Hafsat Abiola, Director of Kurdirat Initiative for Democracy. Ms Hafsat Abiola is a 27 year old human rights and democracy activist from Nigeria whose father, MKO Abiola, the elected president of Nigeria, was denied the opportunity to form a government, deposed by a military takeover, and died in prison. Hafsats mother fought hard for his release during the imprisonment and was herself gunned down by agents of the military in 1996. Hafsat Abiola founded and runs the Kudirat Initiative for Nigerian Democracy (KIND), which is dedicated to promoting democracy and strengthening civil society in Africa. The organisation was founded in her mothers memory.
Hafsat Abiola graduated from Harvard in 1997 and was the president of the International African Students Association for two years. She is currently a Fetzer Fellow and she sits on the boards of the State of the World Forum, Youth Employment Summit, Educate Girls Globally, Womens Learning Partnership, Global Security Institute and Hewlett Packards World e-Inclusion Project.

Mr Jan Gustav Strandenaes, Senior Policy Adviser of ANPED, the Northern Alliance for Sustainability, a European/North American/Central Asian NGO network headquartered in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Jan Gustav Strandenaes is presently facilitating NGO input into the CSD process for the SDIN, the Sustainable Development Issues Network, a cooperative effort by ANPED, ELCI, the Environment Liaison Centre International, Nairobi, Kenya, and TWN, Third World Network, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Working for the NGO Major Group at CSD Jan Gustav has worked with civil society and sustainability issues all his life, in many different positions and in many different countries and locations.

Ms Charity Musamba, President of Jubilee 2000 Zambia, a debt relief organisation and NGO linked to the Jesuit Centre for Theological reflection (JCTR).
Ms Musamba has been participating at many conferences relating to poverty reduction and debt relief. As the Communication and Research Officer of the Debt Project, she attended a Pan African Forum on the Future of Children in Cairo, Egypt and has also been involved in the planning of the Jesuit Refugee Service to provide new services for refugees who have been detained in prisons in Lusaka. In 2004, Ms Musamba was on the panel of a conference organised by the International Jesuit Network.
During the G8 Summit in Scotland this year, the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development (CAFOD) hosted Ms Charity Musamba as she met development campaigners, parliamentarians and Church leaders to campaign for debt relief for Africa and the Make Poverty History campaign. In 2005, she also facilitated the International Convention on Debt and Development in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Follow-up ASC 2005, Culture of Peace Training Session

The UNOY Peacebuilders Office, The Hague, 19 November 2005.
UNOY Peacebuilders organised a one day event aiming to raise awareness of a Culture of Peace and to reinforce the potential of African students to become peace promoters in their home countries.

The 2005 African Students' Conference, held on 22 of October, generated a lot of inspiration and motivation among the participants who saw positive examples of the success of civil society’s actions and became aware of how important and necessary actions of individuals are in achieving peace. There is a need to utilise this inspiration and to empower and to activate these inspired participants.

This Culture of Peace event drew on this inspiration and seeked to transform peace and the Culture of Peace into actionable concepts, concepts that provide the basis for action when participants return to their African home countries.