I. African Globalism African Diaspora Link: Trading Skills & Resources for Global Empowerment Hosted by: The Center for Policy Analysis and Research (CPAR)

PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONGRESSIONAL
BLACK CAUCUS FOUNDATION’S
34TH ANNUAL LEGISLATIVE CONFERENCE
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Defining the Moment and the Movement:
A Summary Report and Blueprint for Community Action

http://www.adami.adv.br/eventos/95.pdf

I.  African Globalism

African Diaspora Link: Trading Skills & Resources for Global Empowerment 

Hosted by:  The Center for Policy Analysis and Research (CPAR) 

Panelists: Gregory Simpkins (moderator), Rep. Donald Payne, Humberto Adami Santos, Salih 

Booker, Mori Diane`, Elias Mageto, Joe Madison, Gov. Luis Muliro 

Summary:  

The purpose of this panel was to map out a plan for future collaboration socially, politically, and 

economically among communities within the African continent and throughout the African 

Diaspora.  There were important implications for working relationships between the Diaspora and 

the African Union (AU).  Various speakers acknowledged that long-standing divisions between 

Africans born in America and Africans who have come to America limit productive collaboration.  

Panelists identified a need to access informal networks that provide inroads to international 

agencies and democratic processes whereby  businessmen and women are given access to 

information before decisions are made.  This panel also provided a platform for Afro-descendant 

institutional building within those organizations. Concrete recommendations on how to bring these 

communities together, including improving our communication skills and studying languages like 

French, Spanish and Portuguese were suggested.  There was also a call to support institutions 

and organizations that facilitate cooperative work.  Acknowledgement that cultural differences and 

misconceptions about cultural differences are an  impediment to progress; to move forward it is 

necessary to eradicate the cultural conditioning imposed by the media.    

Recommendations for Action: 

Lead the War on HIV/AIDS 

• Provide access to essential anti-AIDS drugs. 

• Provide at least $3.5 billion per year to support the work of the Global Fund, is a new 

vehicle that can lead to the defeat of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.  

Invest in Development

• Increase aid to from all rich countries to sub-Saharan African countries to fight 

poverty and promote sustainable development. 

• Require aid to promote human development, and help assist Africa in reaching its 

agreed development goals, such as health and education.  This should be 

considered international investment rather than aid. 

Cancel Africa’s External Debt

• Support the outright cancellation of Africa’s debts.  It should use its influence at the 

World Bank and IMF to press for immediate and unconditional debt cancellation for 

African countries. 

Promote Fair Trade 

• Commit to expanding market access for African goods, and eroding the double 

standard in international trade rules.  This will require addressing trade barriers and 

agricultural subsidies that hinder African exports that continue to preclude an 

equitable trading relationship. 

Support African Efforts to End War & Promote Peace 

• Sustain financial and diplomatic commitment to conflict resolution is crucial to 

regional and international security. 2

• Commit to supporting African peace-making initiatives, by increasing international 

support to ensure its success. 

Help Advance Democracy and Human Rights

• Promote democracy and the full spectrum of human rights in Africa to encourage 

economic and social progress, and enhance international stability. 

      Utilize Technology to Share Information Across the Globe

• Create a web site that could provide a portal for exchange of information back and 

forth.  Create a country specific database so that an entrepreneur who might be 

interested in going into a country can go in and find comprehensive information about 

other states and regions and the business environment within these countries, 

including the fiscal regime, the foreign investment code, the registration and business 

regulation, the rules of foreign ownership of land, as well as the export and import 

policies. 

Connect Business Owners 

• Create a business matchmaking service where this portal will  serve to introduce 

business owners on both sides of the ocean.  The development of a business 

mentoring program that would allow the savvier business persons in the Diaspora 

country to be able to offer mentoring assistance to entrepreneurs in need.  Create a 

retired business executive program.   

P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S 

(1:30 p.m.) 

MR. MAGETO:  Good afternoon, everybody…I'd like to take this opportunity to welcome you to 

the Africa Diaspora Link - Trading Skills and Resources for Global Empowerment panel. 

The purpose of this panel is to map out and plan the future of social, political and economic 

collaboration among different communities in the Diaspora.   

I'd also like to take this opportunity to welcome our moderator for today, Mr. Gregory 

Simpkins…Please join me in welcoming Mr. Gregory Simpkins. 

MR. SIMPKINS:  Thank you, Elias…our forum here this afternoon has very important implications 

for working relationships between the African Diaspora and the African Union.  In December 

2002, the African Union, through the Foundation for Democracy in Africa, held the first African 

Diaspora Forum for those of us in the western hemisphere.  The AU was so impressed with that 

gathering of people from North America, South America and the Caribbean that they changed the 

charter of the AU to include the Diaspora as the sixth region of Africa. 

However, the promise of that action has yet to bear fruit.  The main but unspoken reason appears 

to be the long-standing division between Africans born in America and Africans who have come 

to America to live.  We in the Africanist community tell ourselves that we are of one mind on 

advancing Africa, but there remains a definite division, which must be addressed if we are to take 

advantage of the opportunities that exist before us. 

For many years, there were relatively few of us who worked on African issues and had significant 

contact with Africans.  But the rise in immigration from the nations of Africa, as well as the nations 

of the Caribbean, now means that there are more than one African-American community to take 

into consideration. 

In Miami, for example, Haitian blacks have a very different agenda than American-born blacks, 

and the assembled power of black voters in that area are weakened as a result.  In cities such as 

New York and Boston, the percentage of foreign-born blacks is nearly a third of all black citizens.  3

Political and social patterns are changing as a result, to the alarm of many African-American 

leaders. 

When many of us born here use the term African-American, we mean just the descendants of 

slaves.  When many Africans use the term Diaspora, they mean just those Africans born on the 

continent who live away from the continent today.  We must face this reality and get past it.   

Let us be clear.  Nigerians who have become Americans are just as much African-Americans as 

anyone born in America.  Jamaicans living in Jamaica are just as much members of the African 

Diaspora as Cameroonians living in Germany.   

If we exclude one another from what are supposed to be common terms of reference, of selfdefinition, then how will we work together as so many of our ancestors had hoped that we would? 

W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, George Padmore, and many others worked very diligently 

throughout our history to get black people throughout the world to use our talents collectively.  

They were frustrated in that effort by officials from Europe and from America. 

We must now ask ourselves if we are prepared to undo the progress that we have achieved thus 

far that led us to what is the best opening for cooperation between Africans on the both sides of 

the Atlantic Ocean ever. 

…But I would challenge our panel and also our audience not to leave here today without offering 

solid recommendations on how the descendants of Africa on both sides of the Atlantic can best 

use our collective resources to meet the challenges we face in the global economy. 

Now, to introduce our panel.  First…Congressman Donald Payne,…the Honorable Luis 

Muliro,…Joe Madison,…Salih Booker,…Mr. Mori Diane…[l]ast, but certainly not least, Humberto 

Adami Santos, Jr.

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MR. SIMPKINS:  At this time, we'll here from Mr. Santos. 

MR. ADAMI:  …The subject of this panel about African Diaspora Links made understand that we 

are connected after years and years of fights. 

Some time ago, I could see it in Montevideo, Uruguay, in a workshop built by Mundo Afro, a black 

Uruguayan NGO, part of the feelings of the staying in a boat like the ones that brought African 

human beings to [the] Americas.  The news that humans sunk at that occasion make me 

understand the intelligence of old black Africans that still are living through their dissonance.  We 

can see the same strategy in every place in the world, telling us what we mean today. 

The resistance of African people around the world for a long, long time.  If you pay attention, half 

this population is speaking different idioms, have very similar customs, and some of them never 

can explain why… 

This means resistance.  We received in Brazil some members of Congressional Black Caucus 

Foundation for twice in a happening made by U.S. American Chamber of Commerce of Sao 

Paulo…We talked a lot and we could understand that we can do things together.  We have many 

North American companies that have divested criteria offered a mission for jobs in USA. 

Brazilian-American companies who are in the majority don't have the same criteria.  We 

encourage you to ask that at least the same criteria of inclusion in Brazil can be abducted.  

Remember that Brazilian African descendants population are more than 50 percent.  We see 

Banco de Brazil workers, pension funds, the biggest pension funds of Brazil make a question to 

those to this 140 biggest companies in Brazil. 

How many black persons you have in the middle managers and directories of those 140 biggest 

companies that work in Brazil?  Two percent was the answer of the research for the African 

descent population of more than 50 percent.  A lot of American black people press on those 

companies that have a Brazilian branch can do a lot of difference for Brazilian black people if they 

use the criteria for diversity that they use in the American principal plants of the company. 

…[T]his strategy shows that we can be an example of this cooperation between Afro-Americans 

and Afro-Brazilians and how can get empowerment of the African population and the Diaspora.   

We still have black African clandestines arriving Brazil seacoasts…[s]ome of them when 

discovered are from the high sea.  Some of them are rescued by Brazilian fisherman.  Then they 

have to go to prison, waiting to be deported back  to Africa.  We from ERAI, Environmental and 

Racial Advocacy Institutes, are trying hard on the courts of Brazil to get those human beings out 

of Brazilian prisons and not being deported after 15 days living inside those boats with hunger, 

fear and desperation. 

African blacks are arriving in Brazil seacoasts  for more than 500 years and going to prison.  It's 

past the time to change those things.  We have some people from Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, 9

Mozambique, Tanzania, Nigeria and other African countries.  The Brazilian black movements try 

to change those things…   

We can obviously point to two markets: the  consumer market and the labor market.  Black 

population in all parts of the world are consumers, depending less or more the amount of money 

that they can spend in each society.  But normally they are not represented in the advertisements 

of companies that sell products to them. 

…It is time for black people everywhere to get organized as consumers and so to have 

opportunities in the labor markets. 

I have to finish inviting you all to participate in African campaigning that will bringing 

empowerment to black in all Americas, in all countries in all Africa and the continents…