AFFORD GIVES EVIDENCE IN REPORT CALLING FOR FAIR VISA POLICY, LOWER REMITTANCE COSTS AND MORE TRADE

The House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee has criticised the lack of a coherent UK strategy on Africa saying the current approach is just a collection of broad ideas with little clarity on how to put them into action.

In a new report published today – The UK and Sub-Saharan Africa: prosperity, peace and development co-operation – the Committee calls on the UK Government to develop a new approach to African countries and regional institutions such as the African Union, based on ‘genuine partnership’.

Onyekachi Wambu, AFFORD’s Executive Director, and Professor Gibril Faal OBE, former Chair and current member of AFFORD’s Investment and Bond Advisory Committee, were among scores of individuals and organisations – politicians, NGOs, academic institutions, thinktanks – who gave evidence to the committee as it compiled the wide-ranging report.

Friday 3 July 2020

AFFORD in conjunction with our partners Chatham House and UNDP will host African Diaspora and Development Day (AD3) 2020 on Friday, 3 July, at 14:00 BST.

The theme this year is Scaling Fences: Exploring New Pathways for African Migration and the event will explore UNDP’s Scaling Fences – Voices of Irregular Migrants to Europe report.

Register for the event here.

A statement by AFFORD’s Executive Director Onyekachi Wambu.

On 25 May, the killing of an African American man in the USA triggered a wave of anger and uprising which many are describing as a kind of African Diaspora Spring. 

Like Arabs during their Spring, many people of African descent, who understand the commonalities and tropes of social, economic, legal oppressions spread across the Western Atlantic civilisational space, have been at the forefront of the calls for change. This space, unleashed by Columbus, has been the most important geo-political reality of the last 500 years – the gold, land and free labour of the conquered and enslaved – transforming the fortunes of the European world, turning small and medium-sized countries into super powers. 

People of African descent have played critical roles in co-creating this civilisational space over the last 400 years but have rarely enjoyed the benefits. George Floyd’s killing by the police was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. It was the moment fear evaporated. 

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