Launch Event - Redefining African Futures: The State, Resilience, and Pathways to Progress
Date: Thursday 19 September 2024
Time: 3pm to 4:30pm CET
Location: Online (Zoom)
Online Launch Event for A Special Issue of the African Journal of Sustainable Development on “Redefining African Futures: The State, Resilience, and Pathways to Progress”
The 2023 Academic Conference on Africa, hosted by the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa and UN Academic Impact, provided a platform for African academics to initiate conversations on the status of development in Africa. The theme of the conference, “Redefining African Futures: The State, Resilience, and Pathways to Progress,” highlighted the need to look beyond the conventional narratives that have long dominated global discourses on Africa, and to instead elevate the voices of African scholars, whose insights and lived experiences are crucial to understanding and addressing the continent’s complex realities.
As the UN Summit of the Future approached, it has never been more vital to stir critical dialogue on the work to transform multilateralism to accelerate sustainable development and build durable peace and security, including in Africa. In this context, the importance of African scholarship to the global dialogue is central, as the continent seeks to reclaim its rightful place at the global leadership table. This includes highlighting scholarship from across Africa, where the impact of an outdated international mechanism to boost the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are strongly felt.
In line with the UN Secretary-General’s call that “We can’t build a future for our grandchildren with a system built for our grandparents” in the lead up to the Summit of the Future while presenting an outcome of the Academic Conference, the UN Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (UN-OSAA) and the SDG Academy of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) launched a Special Issue of the African Journal of Sustainable Development (AJSD) focused on African scholarship related to the SDGs, multilateral cooperation, and the future of global governance.
During this launch event, some of these critical voices were highlighted to share the perspectives of African academics and build momentum toward the Summit’s exchanges, their implementation and outcomes. The event featured welcome remarks by Ms. Cristina Duarte, Under-Secretary-General and United Nations Special Adviser on Africa, and a keynote address by Mr. Antonio Pedro, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. This was followed by a panel discussion with Moira Faul, Executive Director, NORRAG, Kelechi Kalu, Professor, University of California – Riverside, Awino Okech, Professor and Director, Feminist Centre for Racial Justice, SOAS University of London, and MaryAnne Iwara, Mo Ibrahim Fellow, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.
Moira Faul’s contribution was complementary to the article co-authored with Felix Laumann, Imperial College London. The article, entitled Complex interlinkages between the SDGs and their importance to African development, published in the report launched, argues that significant interlinkages, more central SDGs, and nexuses between certain SDGs show different patterns of variation between subSaharan Africa, Africa as a whole and the World.
Speakers
- Cristina Duarte, Under-Secretary-General and United Nations Special Adviser on Africa
- Antonio Pedro, Deputy Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
- Moira Faul, Executive Director, NORRAG
- Kelechi Kalu, Professor, University of California – Riverside
- Awino Okech, Professor and Director, Feminist Centre for Racial Justice, SOAS University of London
- MaryAnne Iwara, Mo Ibrahim Fellow, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
- Labode Popoola, Executive Secretary – CEO, African Forest Forum, and Chairman of the Editorial Board, African Journal of Sustainable Development
- Ben Dotsei Malor, Chief Editor, United Nations News
About the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) – website
The United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa (OSAA) is an entity of the United Nations Secretariat established to enhance international support for Africa’s development and security, assist the Secretary-General in coordinating the UN’s support to Africa, facilitate inter-governmental deliberations on Africa at the global level and establish a monitoring mechanism for commitments on Africa’s development. OSAA also convenes and chairs the Interdepartmental Task Force on African Affairs (IDTFAA) while providing global advocacy support for the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD). The Office’s work is clustered around the six thematic areas of Financing for Development; Sustainable Development to Promote Sustainable Peace; Governance, Resilience and Human Capital; Science, Technology, and Innovation; Industrialization, Demographic Dividend, and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA); Energy and Climate Action.
About the SDG Academy – website
The SDG Academy is the education division of the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), the mandate of promoting transformative education through the creation and curation of high-quality content on sustainable development, sharing of innovative pedagogies and training models, and providing open access to learning resources for a global audience.
About the African Journal of Sustainable Development – website
The African Journal of Sustainable Development (AJSD) is an academic journal that contains articles covering a diverse range of topics which are connected to sustainable development. These include economics, agriculture, education, technology, arts and culture, Indigenous knowledge, leadership and governance, forestry, fisheries, sciences, management, environment, health and natural resources. It is published by the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria.