Joint Media Advisory

UNESCO to elaborate on a 9th Volume of the General History of Africa

INVITATION TO THE MEDIA

WHAT: Expert meeting to prepare the Volume IX of the General History of Africa (GHA)

WHEN: 20th -22nd May 2013

TIME: 9:30-10:45

WHERE: African Union Headquarter, New Conference Complex
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

WHO: The Expert Meeting is organized by UNESCO with assistance from the African Union Commission and funding from the Government of Brazil. Keynote speakers will be Professor Elikia M’Bokolo - Chair of the Scientific Committee for the Pedagogical use of the GHA Project; H.E. Mr Erastus Mwencha - Deputy Chairperson, AUC; Mr. Getachew Engida - Deputy Director General of UNESCO; H.E. Ms. Luiza Helena Bairros - Minister, Secretariat for Promotion of Racial Equality of the Federative Republic of Brazil, and H.E. Mr. Mulugeta Said, State Minister of Culture and Tourism for Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia

WHY: To define the methodology, objectives and contents of the ninth volume.

Participants: Participants will be experts and scholars of history from Africa and other continents, Embassy representatives, and governmental representatives.

About GHA
The General History of Africa (HGA) was launched in 1964 in response to the aspirations of the newly independent African states to decolonize their history, and re-appropriate the discourses on their past. Under the scientific and intellectual responsibility of a 39-member International Scientific Committee, two-thirds of whom were scholars from Africa, some 350 authors, translators and volume editors from different regions worked together for more than 35 years on the elaboration of the GHA, resulting in the publication of eight volumes of the main edition in English, Arabic and French. This work was further translated into 13 languages including three African ones (Kiswahili, Fulfulde, and Hausa). In addition, 12 “studies and documents” and 12 volumes on the “Sources of African history” were published to accompany and complement the collection. Volume IX, responds to a request from the African Union and African Member States to complete the collection, taking into account of the new political, social, economic and cultural challenges facing the continent today..

In 2009, and in response to recurrent African Member States’ requests to assist them in developing History curricula and textbooks on the basis of the GHA, UNESCO decided to undertake the 2nd Phase of the GHA : the Pedagogical Use of the General History of Africa Project. It is stated in the Charter for African Renaissance adopted by the African Union Summit in Khartoum in 2006 that ‘The General History published by UNESCO constitutes a valid base for teaching the history of Africa and (we) recommend its dissemination in many languages’.

Media Contacts:

Afrah M. Thabit
Communication Officer
African Union Commission
Tel: (+251) 115-182569
Email: afraht@hotmail.com,Thabitma@africa-union.org

Petra Vytecka Sedinova
Communication Officer
UNESCO Liaison Office
Tel.: (+251) 912 200 144
Email: p.sedinova@unesco.org

Attached the draft agenda of the opening session of the Experts Meeting.

Journalists are invited to cover the official opening ceremony from 9.30 to 10.45.