A year ago, a collective of 100 African intellectual leaders published a public letter addressed to the authorities of the continent. A year later, they decided to form the Collective for African Renewal (CORA) under the leadership of political scientist Amy Niang, lawyer Lionel Zevounou and economist Ndongo Samba Sylla. The leaders and the driving forces of the continent are invited to join this initiative which aims to build a post-Covid Africa with paradigms different from those which have been under way so far.
Africa lives and thinks through its intellectuals who redefine the new contours of a pan-Africanist renewal. This is the mission launched by the Collective for African Renewal (CORA). Nearly six roundtables will take place online between April 12 and 17, 2021, each day from 3 p.m. GMT. “The aim is to put African intellectuals collectively at the center of the debates that agitate the continent and the world. The Covid-19 gives us the opportunity to reflect on new paradigms and to better reposition Africa in the current global disorder “, explains one within CORA. Nearly a hundred African scientists, artists and academics discuss and discuss the place of Africa and its diasporas in a world that is reinventing itself.
Youth at the heart of priorities
While Africa is changing, the participants – including Madame Ameena Gurib-Fakim, former President of Mauritius and renowned scientist – will be keen to show a conquering Africa, sure of its strengths and who knows that it can rely on an academic and scientific community capable of contributing to its renewal. “Through these six round tables, we will kick off the work that will mobilize all members of our community in order to inform decision-makers and the general public on the directions to follow, in order to implement paradigms. Pan-African adapted. Because the urgency is high, especially for the youth of our continent “.
Africa in the face of global disorder
Through this series of webinars, discussions and reflections, the members of the collective wish to redefine an entirely African narrative with solutions to local issues. “African intellectuals take their responsibility to define a new continental narrative”, explain the three initiators of CORA. The birth of this collective follows an open letter dating from April 2020 calling out to African heads of state. This letter was signed by a hundred intellectuals from the continent to invite the recipients to take measures adapted to the social and economic realities in the face of the pandemic. Indeed, she recalled the need for Africa to rely on its own strengths: “Africa does not have its own access to vaccines while Cuba does. And there are other issues, notably on economic and monetary sovereignty, ”explain Amy, Lionel and Ndongo.
CORA will work on several axes, including science, culture and education to create an intergenerational cultural cement more connected to the realities of the continent. “We must rethink the question of economic sovereignty, in particular how to reduce dependence on the outside”, explains one within the CORA which will involve great intellectual figures of the continent of which the former first lady from Mali, Adame Ba Konaré, Senegalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop and feminist and academic activist Amina Mama. These illustrious personalities will have one goal: to carry the voice of a united Africa whose values will be popularized and disseminated across the continent and its children based everywhere else in the world.
