Koinonia Community and Africa Peace Point, two Kenyan voluntary organizations working in the field of human development, human rights and peace education, with the cooperation and support of other partners in Kenya and Italy, are organizing in Nairobi from December 6-8 2007 an International Conference on Resources and Conflicts in Africa .
In the last decade, the wars among local people for the control of resources, complicated and exacerbated by external interests, have touched, directly or indirectly, the lives of more than half of the African population.
However, the international dimension was not always sufficiently addressed, and too often these wars have been interpreted and explained exclusively within the categories of tribalism and mal-governance.
The conference will attempt to address the link existing between the struggle for the control of resources and other factors such as governance, development, human rights, international relations, ecology and demography.
The conference targets in a special way all professional communicators (press, radio, video, and internet) in view of the fundamental role they play in interpreting the African events to their audiences.
The organizers, well aware of the importance of resource conflicts for the future of Africa, intend to tap for three full days the competence and the commitment of several actors who have worked and are working to promote reconciliation, peace and justice. Therefore the speakers will be persons who have been deeply involved, though maybe far from the front stage, and played key peace building roles.
The speakers will participate fully in all the three days of the conference, available to share their experience and to dialogue among themselves and with the participants.
The aim is that by the end of the conference all participants - speakers, journalist, communicators, academics - will have deepened their understanding of the factors and the dynamics that have played a major role in the most important wars recently fought in Africa in Africa.
Participants, a maximum of 70, will be drawn from communicators and media experts - about 50 of them from outside Africa - and from the academic and civil society.
International Secretariat:
Africa Peace Point, P.O. Box 21573 - 00505 Nairobi, Kenya
Tel: +254 (0) 20 3875288/ 3874000/38666758/5
Cell: +254 (0) 722 202 198/734 699 888
Fax: +254. (0)20. 3877892
E-mail: app@shalomhouse.co.ke
Or leah@africapeacepoint.org
Italian Secretariat:
Associazione Ilaria Alpi
tel +39 0541691640
via delle Magnoglie 2 - 47838 Riccione (RN)
www.ilariaalpi.it
Registration: see www.africapeacepoint.org