By Alex Ababio
The United Nations Population Development Fund ,UNFDP has organized a high-level diaspora forum in Accra ,the capital city of Ghana with a view to promoting diversity and cultural contributions of people of African lineage to seek for development of societies around the world.
The forum was attended by high-profile personalities including Natalia Kamen, UN Under-secretary General and UNFPA chief, Costa Rican Vice President Epsy Campbell Barr and her Ghanaian partner, Mahamudu Bawumia.
The social engagement was dubbed , The Return Mission, is important for an UN drive to propel the rights of individuals of African descent .
Delivering his speech at the forum on Friday, Kamen, who is also of African descent , expressed that the meeting created an opportunity for “an extraordinary chance to fortify collaboration for our collective advancement and to promote equity, healing , and social Justice for our communities across the globe.”
Taking her turn to address the forum , Costa Rica’s VP, Epsy Campbell Barr, reiterated the significance of understanding the dream of Jamaican-American scholar Marcus Garvey’s dream of a global Union of Black people .
“Africans have been survivors of fundamental historical racism and exclusion, and the time has come to bring to realisation promise of recognition , equity, and developmentt,” she said. “We should work together as a single continent and advance policies that fortify the relationship and ties among Africa and the diaspora.”
There are an expected 200 million individuals of African lineage in the Americas, with millions more in different areas of the world beyond Africa.
In December 2013, the UN General Assembly declared 2015-2024 the International Decade for People of African Descent and encouraged the international community to perceive individuals of African descent as a special distinct whose common liberties and human rights must be promoted and safeguarded.
The declaration was under the theme is “People of African descent : recognition, justice , and development.”
The UNGA further declared August 31 every year as an International day for people of African lineage .
In the interim, the African Union has likewise proclaimed the African Diaspora as its 6th region, alongside North, South, East, West, Central and the Diaspora Africa.
Ghana, where the forum was being held , has been an unmistakable voice in the establishment of more grounded relations among Africa and the African diaspora.
In 2019, President Nana Akufo-Addo launched the ‘Extended period of Return’ to urge the African diaspora to get back to the continent , especially Ghana, to invest and contribute as a part of a commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first group of enslaved Africans in America.
The West African country has a long history with the African diaspora in light of its essential role in what at last became known as the Trans-Atlantic slave exchange.
Its 550-kilometer coastline is specked with fortresses and castles that served as slave prisons, working with the procuring , shipping, and selling of black Africans as captives to European nations and North America.
Kamen and Barr visited a some of these historic destinations to remember the struggles of enslaved Africans. One of their stops was at the Assin Manso Slave River Site, which was reserved as the place where the oppressed from the country were made to rest and have their last bath on African soil prior to being shipped off the prisons of Elmina and Cape Coast Castle.
The UN delegation used the occasion to visit the Elmina prisons.