By Judy Aita
USIA United Nations Correspondent
NEW YORK -- There is a growing interest in and constituency for Africa across the United States, evident not only in new U.S. government initiatives but in exciting, wide-ranging activities by private national organizations.
A well-attended investment seminar on South Africa held in New York City July 31 highlighted the work of two such organizations and demonstrated the important role they are beginning to play in promoting the revitalization and development of the African continent. Along with U.S. and South African officials, investment bankers, and representatives of corporations already doing business in sub-Saharan Africa, board members of the two groups revealed the efforts under way in the United States to forge stronger ties and underpin mutually profitable development efforts.
The two groups, along with other non-governmental organizations in the United States, are holding meetings throughout the country, building support groups, and educating Americans on how to influence U.S. foreign policy and garner private support for Africa.
The experiences of these groups -- The National Summit on Africa and the Constituency for Africa (CFA) -- the board members said, provide tangible evidence that there is great support for enhanced trade, partnerships, and investment in Africa.
Former New York City Mayor David Dinkins, now chairman of the CFA board, firmly espouses closer African-African American ties.
"I believe there is a compelling role for African-Americans and for all Americans to play for African growth and development," Dinkins said. "I have long sought to work as a partner in progress with South African and other African political, government, and education leaders. At the Constituency, we are seeking to build further relationships with Africa and bring Africa to the forefront of the national agenda."
CFA has "instituted a nationwide education program in the United States to dispel myths...[and] create an organized American constituency to support the economic development of Africa," Dinkins said, adding that "because so many Americans are misinformed or uninformed about Africa and opportunities there, the importance of building an educated constituency for Africa in the United States cannot be overstated."
The National Summit is working with CFA and other groups "to try to create a new interest and new opportunity in Africa for the 21st century," said Andrea Taylor, a member of the Summit board of directors.
"I am very optimistic the Summit can...be a way of reaching out to a much broader constituency than has ever before been involved with Africa. This will, in fact, have a positive impact on trade, development, and education around the continent," Taylor said.
Based on experiences she gained traveling to sub-Saharan Africa for a decade as a Ford Foundation official, Taylor said, "I feel there is a need to bring the stories and the activities and the development and positive energy that is represented in Africa to the larger world scene, because people don't know.
"When they close their eyes and think about images of Africa, they really don't have very positive images. They think about war, they think about famine, and they think about strife and ethnic conflict," Taylor said.
Therefore, the public education and media aspect of the National Summit's program is very important, she said, because Americans "need to see what Africa is about and have a broader and more fully nuanced and developed sense of the continent."
The Constituency for Africa was begun in 1990 by a group of individual Americans and major organizations who wanted to develop a strategy to broaden support for Africa in the United States. Its mission is to increase cooperation and coordination among a broad coalition of Americans and Africans committed to the progress and empowerment of Africa and African peoples, said Dinkins.
The National Summit on Africa also seeks to influence support for Africa in the United States by educating the American public about Africa and helping to guide U.S. relations with the countries on the continent.
Unlike CFA, the National Summit will exist only another two years, with its activities culminating in a five-day summit in Washington, D.C., in 1999. At that time, government, business, labor, education, media, philanthropic, religious, and non-profit agency leaders will meet to discuss and adopt an "Agenda for Action" to improve government and private sector relations with Africa in the 21st century.
The National Summit's goals are to create a more favorable environment toward Africa; link Africa's many consistencies in the United States into a broad, national, community-based force to influence U.S. policy; enhance public understanding of the benefits of a sustained and increased engagement with Africa both individually and institutionally; and increase the availability and accuracy of information on Africa available to Americans, Taylor said.
Started in 1996 with Ford Foundation and Carnegie grants to Africare -- the U.S. non-governmental organization that sponsors small-scale development projects in Africa -- the National Summit has organized its work around five themes: peace and security, democracy and human rights, sustainable development, trade and investment, and education and culture.
Both groups are holding regional summits, "Town Hall Meetings on Africa," one-day seminars, and other activities throughout the United States so Americans from all walks of life can discuss key U.S.-African issues and contribute to the National Summit's Agenda for Action.
The Summit plans to use the Internet to host discussions with Americans and others around the world on African issues. It is also undertaking a variety of public education activities aimed at schoolchildren, college students, businesses, arts groups, and the general public.
Other National Summit activities include conducting a national survey in the United States to identify attitudes in order to determine approaches for educational outreach to U.S. audiences, Taylor said. The Summit also held a separate conference on African perspectives on U.S.-Africa relations in the new millennium at the recent fourth African-African American Summit in Harare.
The National Summit is trying "to attract ordinary citizens -- people who otherwise might feel very distant from Africa...and have not traveled to Africa, to get them involved in this process in a very real and tangible way," Taylor said.
Its first regional meeting will be held in Atlanta later this year in cooperation with Good Works International, an Atlanta-based organization headed by Andrew Young. Other meetings will probably be held in Chicago, in New York, and on the West Coast, she said.
The National Summit is part of the "Africa Policy Initiative," which began with the Kennedy Center (Washington, D.C.) art and cultural festival "African Odyssey." Also included is a 10-part television documentary, "Hopes on the Horizon," on the history of Africa from 1945 to the present.
The TV series "is designed to really give people a more positive, realistic, and comprehensive sense of what the continent is about in the contemporary environment and to try to overcome some of the negative media images and stereotypes that seem to prevail and persist about the continent," Taylor said.
Dinkins added that "because so many Americans are misinformed or uninformed about Africa and opportunities there, the importance of building an educated constituency for Africa in the United States cannot be overstated."
CFA's town meetings have attracted hundreds of participants in Jackson, Mississippi; Memphis, Tennessee; Little Rock, Arkansas; Mount Vernon, New York; and Denver, Colorado. At each site a team of African ambassadors, senior U.S. diplomats, and senior representatives of non-profit organizations and private industry met with state and local government officials, scholars with an interest in Africa, and others to address issues from trade and investment to human rights and democracy, Dinkins said.
"Many of the African ambassadors who rarely travel outside of Washington, D.C., have expressed gratitude for new opportunities to discuss the concerns of their nations and promote investment opportunities," he noted.
"The unprecedented success of the series [of town meetings] has given us a strong indication that we have attracted constituents across the nation and that there is a tremendous level of support for partnerships and well-structured trade and investment with Africa," Dinkins said.