The Tana Security Forum: In need of a reboot
One of the few spaces in which an African security agenda could be debated frankly has been damaged, but it can be brought back to life.
Africa needs a high level forum where its leaders can meet with the best thinkers on peace and security issues, and collectively debate how to define and tackle the continent’s challenges. Unfortunately, what has been the best hope for such a forum has degenerated into a parade of dignitaries making vapid speeches.
Five years ago, the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Meles Zenawi, inaugurated the first Tana High Level Forum on Security in Africa, which met in Bahir Dar, on the shores of Lake Tana, source of the Blue Nile. He opened the meeting by taking off his tie and instructing everyone else to do the same. There were 60 people in the room, and the next day and a half were devoted to intense, informal and candid discussion.
Most of those present contributed, often several times. Hardly anyone began with the litany, “Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, let me open my remarks by thanking the organisers etc. etc. etc.”. The formalities were dispensed with in a few minutes and the forum lived up to its expectations. The rationale for holding the forum outside Addis Ababa – to get away from the pressures of the capital to a relaxed, semi-private setting – was vindicated.
The Fifth Tana Forum convened last weekend. It was a complete contrast: dull, repetitive and formal. There were about 200 people there, packed in rows listening to speeches. Almost everyone wore a tie. Protocol and formalities triumphed. The agenda was packed so that no sooner had one panel been rushed to its conclusion than it was time for a ceremony or a break. There were perhaps half a dozen questions from the floor throughout the two days. The high-level participants were whisked away to their suites between sessions and didn’t mingle with the participants.
Tana has become boring. People attend, reluctantly, because they see it as a good networking opportunity. The sessions themselves are dull: most of the time is taken up by entirely predictable speeches.
The support staff worked efficiently and capably and laid on superb logistics – the Forum was beautifully presented – but it was all form and no substance. The Ethiopian Foreign Minister, Tedros Adhanom, rather than guiding the debate, was reduced to timekeeper.
The ostensible theme of the conference was ‘Africa in the Global Security Agenda’, a theme adopted to echo the meeting of the Munich Security Conference core group, which convened in Addis Ababa immediately prior. It is an important topic. But the sessions dodged the controversial issues of the day. How is the chair of African Union Commission to be chosen? What are the tensions between the AU and the United Nations over peacekeeping and how are they to be resolved? Should African peacekeepers become subcontractors in US-French counter-terror operations? How are the conflicts in the Arab world affecting Africa?
How the Tana organisers assess success was summed up in the opening video presentation, which provided three pieces of information about each of the five forums: the number of participants, the number of heads of state present, and the theme addressed. The fact that the quantity was chosen as the measure of success over quality speaks for itself.
Perhaps the most embarrassing moment in the Forum was when honours were bestowed upon Wolfgang Ischinger, CEO of the Munich Security Conference. Ischinger deserved recognition and thanks for many things, but he was not, as heralded, the “inspiration” for Tana. He was obviously rather surprised by this particular accolade, because he was not, as he himself noted, the initiator of Tana. The real origin story for the forum is that Mulugeta Gebrehiwot, founder of the Institute of Peace and Security Studies at Addis Ababa University, first developed the initial concept, then came to Munich for advice, and finally approached Meles Zenawi. The Germans went on to provide Tana with funds – precisely because it was an authentic African initiative and not a copy of something designed elsewhere.
The obsequiousness of this ceremony made everyone cringe – especially the Germans present.
The spirit of Tana five years ago flickered only in the margins, but now a wonderful idea has been turned into a vapid pageant. One of the few spaces in which an African security agenda could frankly be debated has been damaged.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn announced in the closing ceremony that the Forum would become the Tana Foundation. That is an important commitment and it provides a great opportunity. The new Tana Foundation can realise the original vision of the Forum, but only by a complete reboot.
Alex de Waal is the Director of the World Peace Foundation.
Thank you Alex .. this was s great insight.Great observation! Hope to hear more. ([email protected])
Thank you for this informative post. I like the way you crafted it. Simple and straightforward.
Tana Forum Matters- But Only on the Terms of those who are genuinely committed to its ideals
Dr. Alex de Waal’s “The Tana Security Forum: In need of a reboot” published in African Arguments on April 20, 2016, is an epic in bad taste. There are two broad angles with which one may respond to the essay. First, is to return to an all too familiar debate about the politics of ownership and the nature of power relations between Africa and those who continue to seek control over it. Second is to look at what might just be the hidden transcript of personal acrimony and resentment that any one even vaguely familiar with the inner workings of the Tana Forum would quickly detect from the piece as the prime motivation for the tirade.
Let’s get it clear: Dr. Alex de Waal accepts that the Tana Forum was an initiative developed within and managed by the Institute for Peace and Security Studies, IPSS, at Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. He also recognized, thankfully too, the underlying imperative for the initiative: to provide a platform for frank debate about the many security challenges the continent faces. Of course, for an initiative that is actually still very young, only five years, it is difficult to predict its future. To however suggest, as Dr. de Waal quickly tried to do, that it is becoming ‘boring and lacking in form’ is too hasty, and harsh. One may even debate, as he hinted, whether the announcement by Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn of Ethiopia during his closing remarks that his Government will grant the Tana Secretariat the status of an international foundation; to be known as the Tana Foundation, is a good thing for the Tana vision. Even at that, such a debate about institutionalization is presumptuous for it cannot be conducted at the expense of the most important motivation for Tana itself, which is that Africans retain ownership, content and direction that the Forum should take. I am convinced that Dr. Alex de Waal’s ‘intervention’ is actually little more than a patronizing attempt to snatch ownership of an initiative whose very basis for existence is for Africans to determine their own security priorities and how to respond to them. I believe it is well beyond his remit to espouse how the Tana Forum should be administered, what issues it should bring to the table, and what the content/shape of the debate should look like.
But why does someone like him feel justified to pontificate about what Tana should be and how it should be organized? The answer to this question strikes at the very core of the unfortunate relations of dominance, control and patriarchy that frames Africa’s relationship with the world, and perhaps the West’s relationship with the rest of us. Benefiting from the headwinds of regular research funding and disproportionate access to African politicians, scholars like him have become familiar faces on the continent, touting hurriedly imagined solutions to problems whose roots are sometimes to be found in the very centres of power from which they take off. It is quite easy to understand why this is the case: continental initiatives established with the best of intentions such as the Tana Forum risk becoming hostage to self-righteous individuals who seek to drive the agenda and superimpose their own exogenous discourses on the policies and processes through which they are generated.
Understandably, then, my first reaction reading the piece on my phone while trying to come to terms with the hot cup of coffee before me inside a Starbuck franchise in Bremen, German, was to ignore it. I knew, for sure that the piece would travel very far not just because of the power of the new media but also because of the author’s larger than life stature as well as the far reach of the outlet, African Arguments. Perhaps to underscore this power, stature, and reach, I had actually received the piece almost within minutes of release from a colleague based at Oxford University in England. It dawned on me, there and then, but with painful pity, that most of the people likely going to read it risk swallowing the bait; succumbing to what my compatriot, Chimamanda Adichie, in another context, had aptly described as “the danger of a single story.”
Dr. de Waal is no doubt familiar with the inner workings of the Tana Forum. Obviously, as he clearly demonstrated in the piece, he was there when the idea was hatched. This is precisely why one should worry about his decidedly misleading takeaways from the just-concluded event. Coming almost on the heels of the event, one would even argue with some justification, that his piece might have been penned just before the event, waiting eagerly for a predetermined outcome- for it to flop. Otherwise, one would have expect that an insider of his calibre should have given candid feedback directly to the organisers, no matter how unpalatable. If not directly, he could have availed himself of the forms provided to all participants to freely share their thoughts about the event. To the extent that he failed to use these options, his piece carries only a dead-weight. It suggests, sadly, that when you are no longer in charge or driving a process you are then at liberty to cast aspersion on it.
No one should get me wrong: the just-concluded Tana might not have been a perfect pitch; but those are not for the reasons that the author of the piece offered without solicitation. I have had the privilege, only shared by a few, of attending all the yearly events since 2012. What no one can take away from the Tana Forum, then and now, and hopefully in the foreseeable future, is that it has come to stay as a platform for fresh debate around topical- and contentious- issues bothering on peace and security in Africa, including those that inter-governmental institutions such as the African Union, AU, tend to be reluctant bring to the table.
Contrary to what Dr. de Waal and others might wish for Tana, no one should be in doubts that the space is necessary- and overdue- given the continent’s current place or status in global governance. I do not recall any meaningful contribution the author of the piece made before and during the event. Still, most of those that would now have the privilege of reading the piece cannot even begin to imagine what its author so bravely did to undermine the process leading to the same event. Not many would imagine, even, that after it all he still showed up in Bahir Dar.
The truth is of the matter is that Dr. de Waal tried, in vain, to run the event from his distant base, but failed. Once that did not work, he quickly coupled together this pull-it-down op-ed as the next illogical step. I have no doubts at all that more would come, either from him or from his cohorts. I know this for sure as someone that previously served on the Technical Committee of the Tana Forum, and now also in the light of the active part I played in this last one. While I do not wish to take any credit, I still very much owe it a duty to those who worked tirelessly towards the success of this last event, and also those who attended and took important lessons back to their various destinations, to offer this rebuttal. I do hope, knowing fully well that African Arguments is also partly sponsored by the World Peace Foundation, that its editors would recognize, respect and allow me to exercise this right to be read too.
I would quickly only offer five reasons no one should take the piece by Dr. Alex de Waal with more than a pinch of salt; except, of course, his co-travellers. First, and foremost, he is a bad loser; and like most of his type, they sooner launch laughable tirade at those they believed cause their woes. Like all other colleagues, I vacated the Technical Committee of the Tana Forum after my two-year tenure ended but continued to support the initiative in myriad other ways. By the way, serving on the TC was purely pro bono. If anything, it took a heavy toll on everyone, especially those who have to leave the comfort of their homes in other parts of the world to attend its meetings in Addis Ababa. In the period that Dr. de Waal and I were members, I do not have any recollection that he ever attended in person. He was, instead, more or less an absentee member, always ‘busy’ and joining by Skype. When he manages to come on the screen, he always carried on as if the comfort of his desk conferred any monopoly of knowledge. He argues and disagrees for the most part. Not that this was/is wrong, but he does so with such air and self-importance; and, of course, contempt for the opinion of others. I cannot speak for others colleagues at that time but for me, it was partly a relieve that my tenure ended- and his own sooner too.
This brings me to the second reason why no one should take Dr. Alex de Waal’s piece serious. When he served out his term, he desperately wanted the rule bent for him to continue. Anyone reading me would recall how tenure elongation has become the bane of politics in Africa. Perhaps someday, if the need arises, I might return to the disconnect between what scholars, like politicians, profess and what they actually do. When Dr. de Waal could not get tenure elongation, some of us watching at close range knew he would not go without a ruffle. For someone so accustomed to hobnobbing with and soliciting patronage from African leaders, being told that his term ended, just like that, was not good enough. Even the courtesy of continuing to support Tana, this time without a portfolio, was not pacifying enough.
This brings me to the third reason not to take Dr. Alex de Waal’s piece serious: it revealed that he is only the bold one- for now, at least- among a handful others, that wishes Tana dead on arrival- for petty reasons. In my opinion, their singular desire is to control Tana and its agenda at all cost, or dent its fledgling reputation is the former becomes difficult or impossible. What unites them is the desire to reap where they did not sow; or where they only sowed sparingly and from afar. They have suddenly seen the enormous potentials, now and in the future, of the new Tana Foundation. They now reposition themselves and run it at all cost, surely for the perks, access and visibility likely to comes doing so. But they miss the point: from where I stand, Tana is more of selfless- and mostly thankless- service than it is for self-aggrandizement.
My fingers are aching typing away, still glued to my seat at the beverages franchise. I wish I could just stop here, satisfied perhaps that three- not five- reasons should already suffice. So, let me quickly offer the final two reasons that put the integrity of piece- if less so that of its author- at stake. The fourth one is that anyone reading the story by him would probably come away believing that he only watched the event from afar. On the contrary, he did not only attend in person but somehow also made sure that a video documentary sponsored by the World Peace Foundation, WFP, the outfit he runs in the United States, was shown to the audience.
When the video started, I quickly went to check the program of events to see if it was listed. I wasn’t surprised, and the records should already be there on the website of the Tana Forum for anyone to verify. Of course, I had virtually memorized the agenda by heart; I was probably one of the few that saw it from start to finish. Apart from the Head of the Tana Secretariat, Ms. Michelle Ndiaye, I am not sure many people poured over the agenda, or the entire content of this year’s Tana Forum, as much as I did. So, it truly beats me that someone that openly lamented that this year’s program was overcrowded, or that it left little or no room for debate, did not see anything wrong angling for a pet documentary, no matter how short, to be screened.
For the fifth reason, I should return to my earlier point about how intolerance- even arrogance- now makes the after-thought essay a material to be ignored. In the buildup to this year’s Tana, a number of colleagues had responded to our call for experts to write the background paper. By the way, Dr. de Waal had, one way or another, either directly or by proxy, contributed to- and earned money- writing background papers in the past. This year, however, the Tana Secretariat insisted that others should also be given a chance. It was decided that even if he is to involved, it should rather be with two other colleagues.
My point here is not about those other eminent scholars who took their tasks seriously. When the first draft came, however, Dr. Alex de Waal wrote several emails about the contributions of one of the colleagues, calling him all sorts of unprintable names. In my entire academic career spanning two-decades-and-half already, I have never read a colleague try to take another to the cleaners by so freely dispensing insults in that manner; and while at it, copying everyone on the emails, including the beneficiary. Thankfully, that colleague- a scholar of equal international repute who also currently serves as Chair of one of the leading peace and security studies program in the UK, simply ignored the provocative emails.
Unfortunately, the colleague felt the Tana Secretariat did not protect him well enough from the abusive emails so he promptly excused himself from the assignment, and declined an earlier invitation to participate at the actual event. We were shocked, almost immediately, to receive an unsolicited email from Dr. de Waal offering to quickly write the entire section all over. With only a few weeks to Tana, the Secretariat decided instead to completely remove the section authored by Dr. de Waal. The Secretariat took this decision also because an independent peer reviewer we thought would broker the impasse actually returned a blind review of the draft noting that key portions he wrote lacked depth and rigor. So, when he comes back, or around, to complain about this year’s Tana, it is important that his readers must know where he is coming from and draw their own conclusions.
Permit me to digress a bit to say that I learnt many lessons from the above incidence,and many more in the build-up to the last Tana. The lesson from this narrative is that it is sometimes better to rise about the pettiness and tantrum thrown at us and be focused on the task or goal to accomplish. The wisdom is also well stated in the African proverb that says: if you allow every dog barking at you on the way to your farm to distract or scare you, don’t expect to arrive early enough to tend to your crops. In writing this rejoinder, I would like those who wish to hijack or distract Tana to mellow, or look elsewhere. A good example of a bad loser is that grumpy old man that wants to appear in every family picture. If he is not able to, he would feign the worst pathology of old age by absent-mindedly tearing up all the pictures he did not appear in or simply pass negative comments about everyone in the picture but himself.
Charles Ukeje served as the Chief Rapporteur of the 5th Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa.
Note: The opinions expressed in this write-up are the writer’s own, and have nothing to do with the Tana Forum Secretariat or IPSS.
Dear Charles,
You were the rapporteur for the last Tana Forum. You are a thoughtful person on the substantive issues. That doesn’t show.
Why did you choose a personal attack on me? Particularly on issues where my record is strong, and your case is weak? My record on standing up for the African academy and the African voice in humanitarian affairs, human rights advocacy, etc., is second to none.
My paper on the issues for Tana, that you rejected, and the related correspondence, can easily be made public so people can make up their own minds.
I would have much preferred it if you had used this opportunity to report on what you considered the substantive discussions at Tana. As rapporteur there is no-one better to do that.
Please tell us how the Tana addressed the question of how the new AU Chairperson should be selected. What programme should the candidate have? Should the candidate be required to answer questions from the African public?
Please tell us how the Tana forum discussed candidly the key issues of the day, serving in its mandated role as the place where issues that can’t be raised in public forums can be debated. What did the Forum have to say on today’s global security priorities such as violent extremism, migration, and the absorption of much of Africa into the turmoil of the Middle East?
What did it have to say on the HIPPO report, on the review of the Peacebuilding Commission, on the Obama initiative to pay 75% of AU peace support operation costs, or on the G7+ initiative for rebuilding post-conflict states?
The ‘Chatham House Rule’ is that the substance of the debate can be reported — just not who said what.
My disappointment with Tana was that all these issues demanded thorough debate. This is a really critical moment for Africa and Tana is the place to generate real discussion and new ideas. Please answer my criticism by telling me what those debates were and what those ideas are!
Dear Charles, I think this expression describes you and your comment:
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
Not long ago, I came across Alex De Waal’s critical reaction to the fifth edition of the Tana High-Level Forum on Security in Africa posted in ‘African Arguments’ on April 20 2016. Let me first applaud the eminent expert in the field of peace and security studies for his vivid and graphic description of the conference venue and the surrounding areas of Bahir Dar, the Forum’s host city at the edge of Lake Tana, itself the source of the Blue Nile.
As I went deep into the core of his amusing reaction, his neatly crafted remarks are rather full of mixed feelings of frustrations and hopes. In fact, he must have gone too far to provide us with a tip of advice for Tana’s reboot so that it may be brought to life.
With all due regards I have for Alex, though, I tend to disagree with some of his harsh and gloomy statements which might have been precipitated out of one’s own genuine anticipation for a quick leap. Definitely, there always exists a need for improvement in any promising enterprise of this nature.
Although I do share some of his concerns pertaining to quality and floor/podium imbalance, Tana is not that dead necessitating its prompt overhauling and complete reboot as Alex suggests in his observation. More over, its several sessions this year were not so dull and boring as they have purportedly been depicted by him. In my view, the ‘heads of States’ panel’ was exceptionally worthwhile and to the point in respect of its frank deliberations.
Understandably, not all sessions of this type of constellation may always be able to attract equal and comparable attention of and reception by participants, especially amidst hostile room temperature and irritating power disruptions, fortunately not raised by Alex. In any event, Tana has, once again, achieved its ultimate objective of bringing scores of African leaders, eminent personalities, leading experts in peace and security areas and their global partners together around a strategic issue of common concern to dwell on in an informal setting.
Alex’s indifference on the exaggerated-looking praise and reward conferred on Ambassador Wolfgang ischinger by the governing Board of Tana Forum also seems to have been overstated, in my view. Admittedly, Germans may not have initiated or innovated tana from the very outset. Yet, the organizers of the Forum do still rely on their continuing financial and technical backing so as to execute its annual events. That state of affairs itself must have heavily impacted upon their overly extended show of particular honor and gratitude for the chair of the counterpart Munich Security Conference far away from beyond the African Continent.
That said, we all know very well that Tana Forum is a home-made initiative, perhaps conceptualized first by Meles Zenawi, the laid Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria with experts like Mulugeta G. Hiwot technically assisting in the background. In the meantime, though, I have to correct Alex De Wall that Ato Mulugeta G. Hiwot was not the founder of the Institute of Peace and Security Studies at the Addis Ababa University as it has been uttered in his passing remark. He might have given the said institute life and made it even more visible in the eyes of the international community by forging successful partnerships with similar institutions across the world as he had joined the ongoing project a bit late in the capacity of a dynamic director.
Mulugeta was and still is a good friend of mine as he is Alex’s colleague at the World Peace Foundation, too. Yet, he himself does not claim that he had founded the IPSS with the same tone. All the credit relating to the very evolution, establishment and structuring of the institute has to be attributed to then-acting Director, Yonas Adaye Adeto, (now associate academic director), whom I remember running from one corner to another within the cumbersome bureaucratic ocean of the AAU in an effort to help the new institutional setup stand on its two feet with full energy, but little management knowhow.
Who can thus qualify to be a living witness to recall that daunting exercise other than the first students of peace and security studies program, including myself? To my still unfailing memory, Dr. Jean Bosco butera, the then-Director of UPEACE Africa Program and the laid Prof. Elias Cheboud also did help younger Yonas a lot in the formative phases of the institute.
Note:
Ato Merhatsidk Mekonnen is a senior expert in law as well as peace and security studies. Currently, he is serving in the capacity of a Chief Legal Advisor to the President of the Amhara National Regional State, Ethiopia. He can be reached at: [email protected]
As someone who was part of the development of the Tana forum I share Alex’s frustrations expressed in his article and I hope the organizers of the forum will give it due attention in making sure the forum not only continues but does so in a way it delivers its promises as designed.
I then read Charles’s response to the article. To my disappointment his piece had a lot of inaccuracies and misrepresentations. However, I opted not to comment on it as the article in its totality goes after the person and not his ideas. It is just like a football player who goes after the man instead of the ball and should be kicked out of the game with a red card. I thank Samuel for bringing a great quote from Roosevelt to our attention–a great quote is succinct enough to respond for such deflections. Indeed the comment from Charles was very low. I intimately know him and can assure you that he can afford to be better than that.
Then comes a comment from Merhatsidk, again a comment that fell short of discussing the substance of Alex’s article.
The article doesn’t say Tana is dead but indicates where it is drifting away from its original design: indicating the need for a reboot. The article is actually suggesting that the forum goes back doing to what it used to do as exhibited in its previous editions.
Nowhere in any part of the article is written anything concerning the honesty and frankness of the panelists, including the panel of the Head of States and Government. The article says the forum didn’t give much chance for intensive dialogue as witnessed in the first edition of the forum as the hours of the forum were crowded by several panels, panelists and speeches. If you don’t agree with this you should show us the type of the dialogue you saw following what you called frank and honest presentation of the panelists and not how honest and frank the panelists were.
Alex’s article doesn’t say the Germans didn’t support Tana. Nor does it say they don’t deserve to be thanked for that. In the words of the article, it says:”Ischinger deserved recognition and thanks for many things, but he was not, as heralded, the “inspiration” for Tana”. Indeed Ischinger and his conference deserve recognition for the assistance they provided to the forum. The initial name of the conference at its conceptualization was ‘Addis Ababa roundtable’ and it was meant to be held in Addis Ababa in collaboration with the African Union. It is only after we met with the MSC to learn from their experiences that we understood the rationale for Munich rather than the political capital(s) of Germany for serving as the seat of the conference that we opted to take it out to Bahir Dar and name it after Tana.
They also offered us the chance that they can invite some of our identified key champions of our forum so that they can have a practical experience of the format designed for the conference–which they did by inviting PM Meles Zenawi as the first African head of state to attend the conference in its 41st edition. Once we built the relationships they were open to share us their experiences and all these deserves thanks- but not for being the ‘inspiration’ for Tana. It was initiated and made significant progress to its realization before the MSC came to the picture. You can only disagree with this if you can provide evidence that he was the inspiration for Tana.
Merha stated that he knows the forum was homemade and in his words adds: ‘…perhaps conceptualized first by Meles Zenawi, the late Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria with experts like Mulugeta G. Hiwot technically assisting in the background’. I am sure he has heard the official version on the history of the conference as articulated by Professor Andreas Eshete in his reflection speech by the title ‘Tana after five years’. He explicitly stated that: ‘Tana was initiated by the Institute for Peace and Security Studies and championed by his Excellency the laid (late?) PM Meles Zenawi’. What made you second guess this official version and instead put your own imagined history? By the way what technical assistance do these great people need from the likes of me to conceptualize the forum? I know that these prominent personalities have conceptualized, launched, and managed several high profile initiatives much bigger and greater than Tana. Tana is nowhere to compare to what these great personalities have done and you don’t need to diminish their role by confusing what they did with what they didn’t.
Last, but not least, Merha talks about the history of the IPSS again. Although I don’t understand what made him think this is important, it is factually wrong. I served the institute as its interim director just at its founding, handed the file to Yonas when I took a leave of absence to lead the peace and security strategy development process for IGAD, and took over from Yonas as its founding director at my return. The little success of the IPSS project is the effort of several members and friends of the institute including the young staff who tirelessly worked for its success and the enabling environment created by then President of the University, Professor Andreas.
By the way you should have told us about what you mean by ‘evolution’ ‘structuring’ and ‘development’ before beginning the distribution of credits associated with it. Had you made such effort in informing yourself you probably would have understood the visionary role of Professor Andreas in thinking and bringing this institute and the other two institutes to life. You could have understood his role in bringing the University for Peace Africa program, a key institute that was instrumental in establishing the institute, to be housed at Addis Ababa University.
Then comes the ‘leave Africa alone to learn (and make mistakes) on its own’ by a Mohamed Osman from Senegal. Africa is not a toddler expected to be left alone to learn from its mistakes. African wisdom and scholarship has been there since time immemorial and has been instructive to the learning of others. I would imagine you quote into the wisdom of several non-African scholars to pursue of some of your arguments. Why would you then raise the issue of ‘African-non-African’ when the ideas come with some critiques on the way some African initiatives are handled? The issue of African ownership as related to the forum actually could be an issue of concern when the MSC just a day before the conference had its ‘MSC core group’ meeting in Addis on a similar thematic issue. The forum is an independent African initiative and not an African outfit of the MSC.
The Tana Forum was a clear African initiative supported by the friends of Africa. It was meant to be identified by the intense and frank dialogue it brings to African political discourse. In order to be fit for this task it was designed that it brings 70-90 participants including the Heads of States and Governments with few panels and panelists leaving enough time for intense discussion. Its success is not meant to be measured by the number of senior level personalities it brings but the quality of its discussions and how much it helped the African Union to proactively set its peace and security agendas. This is not only doable but was practically done in its earlier editions and the forum needs to go back to its original format and design.
These exchanges remind me that I owe everyone concerned an article that puts the record right as related to the genesis and developments on the bigger project of IPSS and its programs and reflect on the things that worked and that didn’t as a way of taking stock of lessons. I will soon meet that obligation.
The obligation of Government is to protect its people by providing peace and stability within its borders, to allow for prosperity. If Governments in Africa continue to fail in this pursuit then the economic growth they seek cannot be achieved. The time for talk in the region is over. Elected officals get it together! My company has travelled the world aiding governments in the peace building process and firmly believes that this conference is finally giving voice to the great need for professional security components to finally take a partnership role with African governments and finally help ensure peace and safety in the region. I wish you all the best going forward.
Скоростные индивидуальные IPv4 прокси для Авито и социальных сетях динамические
Hello. And Bye.