CBHanif@SFLTimes.com
POMPANO BEACH — An unprecedented economic initiative is set to take wing with a “Winds of Change Economic Leadership Conference for Indigenous Africans and the Diaspora” slated for Saturday in Pompano Beach.
It will be held at the Worldwide Christian Center, 450 N. Powerline Rd., which is pastored by the Rev. O’Neal Dozier.
With an eye toward developing business opportunities in Africa and America, the conference will include presenters from around the globe, including representatives from the Royal Bafokeng Holdings Company.
According to its website, that firm is the primary investment vehicle of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, a community of about 300,000 Tswana-speaking people with substantial mineral-rich land holdings in the North West Province of South Africa.
A special video presentation will feature the Most Rev. Thabo Makgoba, Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, fresh from delivering a message on spiritual economics at the recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Other key participants will include the U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corporation, the State Department, the World Bank and the African Business Development Group.
Attorney Robert Beatty, publisher and chairman of the South Florida Times will moderate the conference which is free and open to the public.
Organizers say participants will engage in in-depth dialogue on how indigenous Africans and the Diaspora can collaborate on economic opportunities both in the United States and in Africa and learn what tools are readily available to the Diaspora in the U.S.
“This event launches our strategic outreach for a community-wide campaign among businesses and community organizations to generate interest and awareness as to how indigenous Africans and the Diaspora can plan and implement economic development strategies for the benefit of both,” said Julius V. Jackson Sr., president of People Helping Each Other (PHEO), which, along with the African Business Development Group and other partners, is collaborating with Makgoba on the effort.
Jackson said that the archbishop’s initiative puts many of the assets of the wealthiest continent on earth within reach of the African Diaspora after more than 400 years of watching from a distance. But he added that there also are high expectations for the input that members of the Diaspora are expected to provide this weekend toward the initiative’s launch in June.
The summit also comes as a prelude to the World Economic Forum in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in May, when the archbishop again will be a presenter. The PhD graduate of the University of Capetown, whose doctoral thesis was “Workplace Spirituality,” has since earned a PhD in Business Administration from that university.
It will be held at the Worldwide Christian Center, 450 N. Powerline Rd., which is pastored by the Rev. O’Neal Dozier.
Speaking of the recent economic summit in Davos, the third that he has attended, Makgoba said, “As a person of faith, it was interesting to see how the business community views the markets and use capital.”
At such sessions, he said, “they are constantly seeking a framework in which to make capital generate more capital for themselves. And there’s a particular skew, or particular color or race, and the dialogue happens among these drivers of the world economy and there is clear cooperation amongst them.
“But rather than sit and moan, and envy, I think the initiatives that I’m seeking us to do, with the eyes of faith, is to say, ‘How can we get Africans, in South Africa, in Africa and the whole Diaspora, to come together, and make a contribution to make the world a better world, and provide a distinctly African and American framework in which we take the public good, and the common good, as the heart of what we do?’” he said.
“Because at the heart of every faith, is the need to serve the common good.”
IF YOU GO:
WHAT: Winds of Change Economic Leadership Conference for Indigenous Africans and the Diaspora
WHEN: 8 a.m. – 12 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 18.
WHERE: Worldwide Christian Center, 450 N. Powerline Road, Pompano Beach.
COST: Free but advance registration required
CONTACT: Carolyn Kennedy, 754-234-7943.
Photo: Rev. Thabo Makgoba
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