Mission Statement
AJC’s Africa Institute
- Raises awareness of the challenges facing Africa that most resonate with the political consciousness and social activism of the American Jewish community.
- Conducts advocacy on those challenges and facilitates technical cooperation and development assistance from the United States and Israel in Africa.
- Seeks to establish lasting ties with civil society and governments in Africa, as well as African Diasporas in the U.S., based on the recognition of shared values and mutual understanding.
Programmatic Objectives
The Institute’s advocacy priorities include, among other issues, health, legal stability, security, economic development, empowerment of women, human rights, justice and peace. These issues are pursued by raising awareness among AJC constituencies of the challenges Africa faces and presenting our members with concrete opportunities to address them, including:
- Using AJC’s seasoned advocacy platform in Washington and extensive international contacts to influence policy.
- Joining coalitions assembled around particular issues, such as Darfur, debt cancellation, fair trade.
- Fostering a better understanding of the growth opportunities Africa offers, as seen by progressive and reformist Africans themselves.
- Sharing the organizational and advocacy expertise of the Jewish diaspora with diasporas of select African countries. Our aim is to help enhance the economic and political contributions of African expatriates to their own countries of origin.
- Facilitating involvement of Israel’s technical assistance community—both the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Mashav program and other Israeli NGOs in the fields of public health, education and agriculture—in African projects.
- Strengthening inter-group and interfaith relations by establishing dialogue with the religious leadership of relevant African countries, Muslim and Christian, whose political influence is often critical at the grassroots level.
- Adding the Africa Institute’s agenda, whenever appropriate, to AJC’s longstanding relationships with the African American community.
- Organizing conferences and events, and sponsoring publications.
Recent Activities
The Africa Institute:
- Ongoing work to ameliorate
the condition of South Sudanese asylum seekers in Israel. To this end,
the Africa Institute, in partnership with Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society
(HIAS) and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, traveled to
South Sudan and Israel, to establish a program that would offer
vocational training to those South Sudanese asylum seekers and assist
in their voluntary repatriation to South Sudan.
- Arranged visit to Israel for
Ezekiel Lol Gaktuoth, Head of South Sudan’s Mission in the United
States, and traveled with him to meet with senior Israeli government
officials and Sudanese asylum seekers. The visit was a first for an
official South Sudanese Government representative.
- Facilitated a trip of
experts from the Standards Institution of Israel to Rwanda, to promote
interaction between the two countries and to chart a path for mutual
program development concerning the certification of agricultural crops
for export.
- Hosted in AJC’s Washington,
DC office Haim Divon, director of Israel’s Foreign Ministry
International Cooperation unit, to present on Israeli water technology
solutions for African countries to an audience that included African
Ambassadors to the United States as well as US government officials.
- Organized a mission of AJC’s
young leadership division to Ethiopia, for meetings with government
officials, non-governmental organizations, members of the diplomatic
community, and civil society. Group members from around the US
undertook hands-on relief work at an urban school in Addis Ababa and
are currently engaged in educational outreach in their home
communities.
- Partnered with the South
African Union of Jewish Students to organize a study tour to Rwanda for
non-Jewish South African university and graduate students. The visit
focused on genocide commemoration and assessing reconciliation efforts.
- Participated in the campaign surrounding Darfur Now, a film that AJC helped co-produce and stars Don Cheadle, among others.
- Traveled to Uganda to survey
needs in the provision of healthcare services, especially
antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS, to conduct more focused advocacy
by AJC on those issues.
- Met with foreign leaders
during the opening of the United Nations General Assembly, including
the Presidents of South Africa and Nigeria and the Foreign Ministers of
Nigeria, Senegal, Mozambique, Burkina Faso, and Gabon.
- Encouraged the US Office of Management and Budget to budget the United States African Development Foundation (USADF) at $35 million for Fiscal Year 2008. USADF invests in small and medium sized businesses and requires African governments to match 1 to 1 the grants it provides.
- Lent financial support to an Israeli humanitarian team providing medicine, water-distribution technology, children's clothing, and community mobilization training to Somali refugees in Kenya, at the request of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
- Participated in roundtable discussion with, and was honored by, the Continental African Community, one of the first pan-African diaspora organizations, for the Africa Institute's work with the Nigerian diaspora.
- Participated in the 19th International Catholic-Jewish Liaison Committee meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.
- Hosted a breakfast event for Ambassador Donald Yamamoto, US Ambassador-designate to Ethiopia, which included individuals with experience in Ethiopian tourism, trade, and development. These participants offered assistance to the Ambassador in his new posting.
- Hosted event featuring Ambassador Manzo George Anthony, Nigeria's Ambassador to Israel, and Galia Sabar, Chair of African Studies at Tel Aviv University, in partnership with AJC's New York Chapter. Both speakers discussed the Israel-Africa relationship.
- Participated in two day-long Northern Uganda lobbying symposium that featured Betty Bigombe (chief peace mediator for the conflict), Rwot David Onen Acana II (Paramount Chief of the Acholi people), and John Prendergast (International Crisis Group), among others. The purpose was to urge Senators and Congresspersons to encourage the State Department to publicly support the ongoing peace talks between the Lord's Resistance Army and the Government of Uganda.
- Co-sponsored "The Global Effort for Africa: Israeli and American Jewish Initiatives," with Columbia University's Earth Institute and the Israeli Consulate to honor a gift to the World Food Program by AJC and other American Jewish organizations. The event included a panel discussion moderated by Africa Institute Chairman Stanley Bergman and featured Jeffrey Sachs, Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University; George Obiozor, Nigeria's ambassador to the United States and former Nigerian ambassador to Israel; and Isaac Herzog, Israel's minister of tourism, among others.
- Hosted, at the request of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, a daylong Political Advocacy Workshop for the U.S.-based Nigerians in the Diaspora Organization (NIDO). Several Nigerian Federal Ministers have remained in contact, offering support for this ongoing partnership.
- Cosponsored with the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) forum on the 2006 Private Sector African Growth and Opportunity Act. The CCA, Boeing, Chevron, Mars Incorporated and the World Cocoa Foundation were cosponsors. The event facilitated the exchange of views between business leaders with experience in Africa and 37 ministers of trade from African nations.
- Participated in the American Friends Service Committee’s Debt Relief Lobby Day Training Session, urging Congressional staffers to support 100 percent debt cancellation for African nations.
- The Africa Institute attended the Second World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace in Seville, Spain.
- Hosted a panel discussion on lessons learned from the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Sierra Leone, featuring Ambassador Daudi Mwakawago, who was in charge of UN peacekeeping forces in Sierra Leone, and Ambassador Donald Steinberg, vice president of multilateral affairs at the International Crisis Group. African diplomats and leaders of non-governmental organizations attended.
- Co-sponsored a conference in Israel, with Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. The conference, “African Diasporas: Flows Across Time and Space,” was attended by African Studies academics from Cameroon, France, Ghana, Israel, Italy, South Africa and the United States.
- Organized, at the request of Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo, Permanent Representative of South Africa to the UN, a presentation by senior AJC experts on the implications of the Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. Ambassadors to the UN from Argentina, Brazil, Congo, Ghana, Jamaica, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Nigeria, Peru, Senegal, Thailand, Trinidad and Tobago, and Vietnam, all members of the G-77, which Ambassador Kumalo chairs, participated.
Publications
Israel and Africa: Assessing the Past, Envisioning the Future – This booklet considers the potential for a vibrant and constructive partnership between Israel and the African continent.
Justice and Identity: ‘The Non-Jewish Jew’, Cosmopolitanism and Israel/ Zionism in South Africa by Alana Pugh-Jones
Press Releases
JBI, AI Condemn Zimbabwe Violence, Urge Run-off Postponement
Other Media
Multimedia from the Inaugural Meeting of the Africa Institute, May 5, 2006. LISTEN
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