Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ)

Independent, not-for-profit organization

Location: Nigeria

Contact: info@fij.ng. Website: fij.ng

Description

The Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) is an independent, not-for-profit organisation that combats injustice, holds power to account and speaks for the voiceless. Founded by ‘Fisayo Soyombo in June 2020, it seeks to uncover the truth by bypassing officialdom and neutralizing propaganda, and making it accessible to the public in a way that eases and influences their everyday decision making. Its vision is "to use journalism as a tool for bettering the world, beginning from Nigeria".

West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP)

Regional peacebuilding organization

Located in Accra with national network offices across the various West African states

Contact: Tel: +233 (0)302 411638; (0)302 406340, (0)302 426004, (0)302 408224. E-mail: wanep@wanep.org Website: wanep.org

Description

The West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP) is a leading Regional Peacebuilding organization founded in 1998 in response to civil wars that plagued West Africa in the 1990s. Over the years, WANEP has succeeded in establishing strong national networks in every Member State of ECOWAS with over 700 member organizations across West Africa. WANEP places special focus on collaborative approaches to conflict prevention, and peacebuilding, working with diverse actors from civil society, governments, intergovernmental bodies, women groups and other partners in a bid to establish a platform for dialogue, experience sharing and learning, thereby complementing efforts at ensuring sustainable peace and development in West Africa and beyond. In 2002, WANEP entered into a historic partnership with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) an inter-governmental structure in the implementation of a regional early warning and response system (ECOWARN). A memorandum of understanding between WANEP and ECOWAS was signed in 2004 for five years, and has since been renewed for another 5 years. This partnership constitutes a major strategic achievement for WANEP and West Africa civil society as it offers the much desired opportunity to contribute to Track I response to conflicts and policy debates. At the continental level, WANEP is a member of the Peace and Security cluster of the African Union’s (AU) Economic, Social and Cultural Council –ECOSOCC representing West Africa. At international level, WANEP has a Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and is the West Africa Regional Representative of the Global Partnership for the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). WANEP is the Chair of GPPAC. WANEP provides professional courses in conflict prevention and peacebuilding informed by several years of practice experience to governments, businesses, and practitioners throughout the sub-region and beyond. Underlying its work is a commitment to professionalism and a dedication to a world of mutual respect, tolerance and peace.

Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA)

Regional independent non-governmental organisation

Location: Accra, Ghana with partner organizations across West African countries

Contact: +233 302 555327 / +233 302 955213/ Email and website: info@mfwa.org/ Website: mfwa.org

Description

The MFWA is a regional independent non-governmental organisation with a network of national partner organisations in all 16 countries in West Africa. It is the biggest and most influential media development and freedom of expression organisation in the region with UN ECOSOC (Economic and Social Council) Consultative Status. The MFWA also has Equivalency Determination Certification with NGOSource that certifies the organisation as being the equivalent of a public charity in the United States. The MFWA is also the Secretariat of the continental Network of the most prominent Free Expression and Media Development Organisations in Africa, known as the Africa Freedom of Expression Exchange (AFEX).  It also works in partnership with other regional and international organisations through different networks such as IFEX, AFEX, the Africa Freedom of Information Centre (AFIC) and the African Platform on Access to Information (APAI). The organisation also works closely with the regional inter-governmental body, ECOWAS. It also engages frequently with mechanisms of the African Union (AU) and the UN.

Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. In Search of African Diasporas : Testimonies and Encounters. Durham, N.C. :Carolina Academic Press, 2012.

This is an ambitious and brilliant book by one of Africa's leading diaspora intellectuals. A combination of a researcher's field notes, a travelogue and personal memoir, it is unusual in African writing. It is the first book by an African scholar to take us on such an amazing analytical and narrative journey in search of African diasporas around the world from Latin America to the Caribbean, Europe and Asia. It is filled with analytical insights, captivating stories, and intriguing observations on the complex histories and experiences of African diasporas, their triumphs and tragedies, perils and possibilities, and their enduring struggles for belonging, for their humanity. Its inimitable passions are leavened by engaging humor, its scholarly analyses by a novelist's eye for local context and color.

The author seeks to address the perplexing question of what it means to be a person of African descent living outside of the African continent. He offers the reader fascinating and richly textured portraits and surveys of the diversity of diasporic lives as well as the abiding connections of the diaspora condition. What makes this book particularly gripping are the multilayered narratives, the braided stories and explorations of African diasporic lives across many contexts and places as well as the author's own life during the period of his travels from 2006 to 2009. Also skillfully interwoven are the author's daily encounters and observations, information and reflections from interviewees from all walks of life, and the larger structural contexts of diaspora struggles for enfranchisement and empowerment.

Source: Excerpt from book description culled from Amazon.com

Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. "Leveraging Africa’s Global Diasporas for the Continent’s Development", African Diaspora 11, 1-2 (2019): 144-161, doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/18725465-01101002

The paper analyses some of the challenges that undermine more productive engagements between the diasporas and their countries or regions of origin. The paper concludes by focusing an academic initiatives that aim to strengthen the project of engaging African diasporas for Africa’s sustainable development, namely, the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship Program.

Source: Excerpts from article 's abstract

Zeleza, Paul Tiyambe. “Obama’s Africa Policy: The Limits of Symbolic Power.” African Studies Review 56, no. 2 (2013): 165–78. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43904934.

The election of Barack Obama as the first African-descended president of the United States in 2008 was greeted with euphoria in the U.S. and around the world, including Africa. Little, however, changed in the substance of U.S.–Africa relations. This underscores the limits of the symbolic politics of race and presidential personalities in the face of the structural imperatives of U.S. power and foreign policy in which African interests remain marginal and subordinate to U.S. interests. The article explores the structural contexts of foreign policymaking in the United States and what might be expected from the second Obama administration.

Source: Article's abstract