African Presidential Roundtable

(left to right seated) H.E. Kaunda, H.E. Pereira, H.E. Masire, Tony-award winning actress Ms. Phylicia Rashad, H.E. Moi, H.E. Mwinyi, USAID’s Dr.Sarah Moten. (left to right standing) BU Board of Trustees Chairman Alan Leventhal, H.E. Monteiro, H.E. Chissano, H.E. Rawlings, H.E. Soglo, H.E. Offmann, BU Provost ad interim Dr. David Campbell, H.E. Buyoya, ChevronTexaco’s Luddy Hayden, APARC International Host Committee Chairman & CEO of Sovereign Bank of New England John Hamill, and Federated Department Stores’ Ed Goldberg at the APARC African Presidential Roundtable Dinner 2005 at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston.

A Survey of American Media Coverage of African Democracies: 1994 - 2004 Prepared for The African Presidential Archives and Research Center African Presidential Roundtable 2005 Johannesburg, South Africa April 8, 2005

The Event

Roundtable 2005
A Transcontinental Success

On April 7-13, 2005, the African Presidential Archives and Research Center (APARC) convened eleven former African heads of state along with a distinguished group of public and private sector leaders from around the world to discuss Africa’s image in the American media and the recently released Commission for Africa Report.

Accountability was the collective challenge from the eleven elder statesmen attending the transcontinental summit at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa and Boston University in Boston, Massachusetts.

“We acknowledge the need for African leadership to be accountable relative to matters like good governance, peace and stability, and transparency in our economies,” said Sir Q. Ketumile Masire, former president of Botswana and current APARC Balfour African President-in-Residence, at the closing Boston press conference of the African Presidential Roundtable 2005. “…if initiatives like the UN Millennium Development Goals, the Commission for Africa Report and the Millennium Challenge Account are going to be worth more than the paper they are written on then the West is also going to need to be accountable relative to its commitments to partner with Africa.”

“Global policies regarding Africa reinforce that Africa has never been more primed to take its place in the global economy and global cooperation is needed for this to happen,” Masire continued. “Africa's image in the American media has a profound relevance to the world considering Africa as a worthy investment venue and viewing Africa as a valuable trading partner. Africa's importance to global commerce and development is unquestionable. The issue is will Africa ever benefit from its contribution to the global economy as much as the world benefits from Africa. Africa's turn is long overdue!”

Former President Masire was joined by Nicéphore D. Soglo of Benin; Pierre Buyoya of Burundi; António Mascarenhas Monteiro of Cape Verde; Aristides Maria Pereira of Cape Verde; Flt. Lt. Jerry Rawlings of Ghana; Daniel arap Moi of Kenya; Karl Auguste Offmann of Mauritius; Joaquim Alberto Chissano of Mozambique; Ali Hassan Mwinyi of Tanzania; and Dr. Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia.

Among the 125 participants in the closed-door Roundtable were South African Finance Minister Trevor Manuel, Anglo American CEO Lazarus Zim, Boeing Africa Director Rudolph Louw, and CNN Johannesburg Bureau Chief Charlayne Hunter-Gault.

Private sector leaders from ChevronTexaco, Diageo Africa, Boeing, Stanlib, and Merck were also represented. Dr. Sarah Moten of USAID, U.S. Ambassadors to Botswana, Ghana, Mauritius, South Africa and Zambia and Ambassadors to the U.S. from Cape Verde, Senegal, Kenya, Mali, Mozambique and Zambia attended from the public sector.

Other participants included the NEPAD Steering Committee Secretariat; Policy advisor from the Office of former President Clinton; Benin’s permanent representative to the U.N.; and the British and Irish Consul Generals in Boston. Policy experts from Boston University, the University of the Witwatersrand, Harvard Law School, University of Ghana, Harvard Business School, Morehouse College, The Africa University, Brown University, University of Dar es Salaam, Tufts University, and Elizabeth City State University also participated. CEO of the Millennium Challenge Corporation Paul Applegarth had a private meeting with the former heads of state.

In addition to the closed-door working sessions, a public forum was held in Boston where the former heads of state engaged four hundred people on the topic, “African Perspectives: Integrating Africa into the Global Economy”.

With the opening session held in Africa for the first time, The Roundtable 2005 marked many milestones. The inaugural Roundtable 2003 featured the support of six former African heads of state. In 2005 that number has nearly doubled. For the first time, students and faculty from three African and three American Universities attended as part of the USAID funded initiative, the APARC American-African Universities Collaborative; and an additional eight university students observed the high profile dialogue as Federated Department Stores Fellows.

The Mission and Rationale

The African Presidential Roundtable is a signature program of the African Presidential Archives and Research Center (APARC) at Boston University. APARC is a multidisciplinary, university-based center, and was established to complement Boston University’s African Studies program, the second oldest in the nation. The principal mission of APARC is to study the trends of democratization and free market reform in Africa. The Center’s aim is to provide a forum for exchange on political and economic developments in sub-Saharan Africa during this period of profound and historic change. It is our expectation that by providing such a forum APARC can help further free-market reform and democratic governance in Africa. These twin objectives are based on the premise that if conditions in Africa are to improve within countries, communities, and for individuals, African nations must be integrated into the modern global economy.

The purpose of the Roundtable is to convene former democratically elected African heads of state for deliberation on issues that impact U.S.–Africa relations. The Roundtable complements another initiative of APARC, the Balfour African President-in-Residence Program; and as such, offers another opportunity to ensure that the “African point of view” is disseminated within the United States. It also ensures continuity in the involvement of African leadership in the work of APARC, in that the Roundtable represents a way to keep former African heads of state that seek out or already have established a relationship with APARC engaged on a consistent basis.

Please contact APARC at (617) 353-5452 or aparc@bu.edu for a copy of the Communiqué that documents the African Presidential Roundtable 2005.