REDEFINING AFRICA & AFRICANS ECONOMICALLY Sponsorship Pack May 2017 Conference DC Atlanta & Chicago
To us, Africa is where Africans are and Africans are people that claim African ancestry, regardless of their current geographical location today. Africans have fought for political freedom; however economic freedom is yet to be attained. Political freedom without economic freedom is a misrepresentation of what freedom means. Ben Omoakin Oguntala African in Chief, Developing Africa
CONTENTS
C ONTENTS
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NTRODUCTION
OUR OBJECTIVES
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R EDEFINING AFRICA AND AFRICANS ECONOMICALLY CONFRENCE OVERVIEW
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AFRICAN AMERICAN BUSINESSES - THEIR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES AFRICAN AMERICAN BUSINESSES AND THEIR INTEREST IN AFRICA RAW MATERIALS
S PONSORING THE REDEFINING AFRICA AND AFRICANS ECONOMICALLY PROJECT
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E MPHASIS ON DEVELOPING AFRICAN RAW MATERIALS
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S ETTING UP THE PILOT IN AFRICA - AFRICAN NATURAL RULERS
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P ILOT PROJECTS IN AFRICA
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T YPES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES WE WANT TO IMPACT
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T YPES OF AFRICAN COMMUNITIES WE WANT TO IMPACT
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A BOUT BEN OMOAKIN OGUNTALA
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B EN OMOAKIN OGUNTALA’S PUBLICATIONS
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NTRODUCTION
A great son of Africa, Bob Marley once said, “How good and how pleasant it would be, before God and man, to see the unification of all Africans�. It has been established that Africa has raw materials and its currently unable to convert the raw materials into end products. China is the latest country to exploit Africa for its raw materials after the colonial powers in a blanket approach, raided Africa for its raw materials. Invariably, in all the scenarios, Africa and African communities remain disadvantaged, whilst those that exploit it exhibit substantial growth. Our plan is to challenge this status quo by providing our own solution to the development of our raw materials. The development of raw materials in a manner that benefit Africa, Africans and African communities both in Africa and African American Communities. It has also been established that Africa is in need of an influx of international products and services to develop other sectors of its economy and African American businesses need an avenue in Africa whereby their services can be made available to 55 countries in Africa.
OUR OBJECTIVES The following therefore forms the solution we would like to implement in this project and formulates the objectives of the redefining Africa and Africans economically: 1. Create a raw materials development framework that links African American projects with African communities, creating jobs and trade between the two communities 2. With the raw materials development framework, engage African American businesses directly in the development of African raw materials 3. With the raw materials development framework, make African American business services available to African communities creating trade and jobs in Africa whilst provide export revenue to the African American businesses 4. Create Developing Africa Centers in African American projects providing training and knowledge transfers to the communities and engaging the participants in raw materials development projects 5. Initiate in both communities, Developing Africa projects that will allow individuals to take part in projects and come up with ideas that convert issues and challenges in African communities into commercial solutions 6. Provide support to the vulnerable in both communities to ensure access to basic amenities of life are provided.
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REDEFINING AFRICA AND AFRICANS ECONOMICALLY CONFERENCE OVERVIEW
Three conferences will take place in the last week of May 2017 to launch the project in the US. The locations are:
1. Chicago 2. Washington DC 3. Atlanta
African American businesses – Their products and services This section of the conference will register all the business services from African American businesses and initiate how they can be provided online to the African countries.
African American businesses and their interest in African raw materials This section of the conference will register the demand for raw materials from African American businesses and the plan is to ensure they are registered as demand for the raw materials as well as establish their interest in converting the raw materials into end products.
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SPONSORING THE REDEFINING AFRICA AND AFRICANS ECONOMICALLY PROJECT
Sponsorship of the project and conference is designed in a quid pro quo fashion, sponsor pay a sponsorship fee to place their products or services into the raw materials development framework and into the redefining Africa and Africans economically project.
CONFERENCE SPONSORS 1
Sourcing raw materials from Africa - Africa has raw materials that could be made available to African American businesses, this would boost their competitiveness in the market and allow them to excel. This would allow African American businesses to source raw materials from African knowing it is part of the raw materials development project meaning, we do not simply source the raw materials for the sake of it. We source the raw materials initially to generate revenue to start building the capability to produce the end product locally in Africa.
2 Building the capability to convert raw materials into end products – African American business-
es will have the opportunity to convert the raw materials into end products locally in Africa and in collaboration with African American projects based Developing Africa Centers, can market the end products to the international markets, as the end products would have marketing and sales offices in African American projects.
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Placing products and services into the development of African raw materials - the development of African raw materials requires a significant amount of collaboration to realize the end goal and rather than re-inventing the wheel, we intend to partner with various African American business to be equity partners in the journey to develop the African raw materials
4 Exclusivity in product and service placement
– we offer exclusivity in placing products and services into the raw materials development project and in this scenario, African American businesses would generate revenue from the project utilizing the sponsor’s products and services operationally
5 Generic Sponsorship benefit – a. Raise brand awareness and create preference b. I support Developing Africa and Africans banner c. Create positive PR and raise awareness of the organization as a whole d. Provide attractive content for a range of products and services e. Build brand positioning through associative imagery f. Support a sales promotion campaign g. Create internal emotional commitment to the brand h. Act as corporate hospitality that promotes good relations with clients.
Types of sponsorship available: • Gold - Exclusive right in product placement, • Silver - Top 10 Group right in product placement • Bronze – joining the supplier list.
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EMPHASIS ON DEVELOPING AFRICAN RAW MATERIALS There is no getting away from the fact that Africa’s largest trading asset is its raw materials. It is the main reason behind the very first colonial interest in Africa and it was one of the reasons the slave traders particularly focused on Africa. This raw material, in this author’s view, is every African’s birth right, a God given right that links the darkness of our skin to the raw materials that God gave to our ancestors.
Our aim is effect small changes in Africa that can improve local lives in rural Africa It is just unfortunate that the development of that raw materials has been repeatedly mishandled, firstly by those that discovered its existence, those that attributed value to its existence and of late, the new era of African Governments that either abuse the raw materials or fail to put measures in place to ensure the development of that raw material not only generates revenue for the businesses concerned but equally benefits the communities and the people from the community it comes from. In the first instance, experts have noted that African governments are not taking its “demand to supply” seriously and that they expect investors to take all the risk. These governments thus avoid any situation that will make them take part in complex development projects. Here lies the gap this project is trying to fill by bringing in African American businesses into the framework that development path Every time demand goes to supply, the value of the product is significantly diminished and this is the model that China is using that has worked quite well in its favour. Every time you hear of a foreign company purchasing a land in Africa, it is predominantly based on this principle.” Our plan is to engage African American businesses in the development plan bringing Africans into the framework and those with an invested interest in seeing the motherland develop in the manner that it ought to.
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Raw materials development projects have continued to spring on the continent to the delight of many Africans but the international investors still hold the ace by withholding the intellect or knowledge key to the success of the projects. In the long run, the knowledge capital needs to truly develop and this is one of the reasons we want to engage African American businesses. Every African and displaced Africans including African Americans, Afrodescendientes, Afro Caribbean’s and other Africans in various parts of the world have a birth right to African raw materials because it was the main reason Africa was exploited and detrimental measures and policies put in place against Africans worldwide. The development of that raw material thus, needs to directly benefit the Africans that are involved in the process and this is key aim of redefining Africa and Africans economically. There is the subsistence of raw material in every location where Africans are in Latin America, what they lack is trade.
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SETTING UP THE PILOT IN AFRICA - AFRICAN NATURAL RULERS
The approach to implement this project in Africa starts with a newly formed organization called African Natural Rulers, headed by his Royal Highness Oba Dokun Thompson, The Olooni of Eti-Oni Nigeria. The aim is to avoid the issues and challenges in dealing with political figures who often do not last in Africa but instead to deal with the African Natural Rulers who last far longer in the African communities and have closer ties with the African raw materials. The ANR Initiative is a resource platform comprising of several African Natural Rulers from countries in Africa to address and promote intellectual capital. Over the last 150 years there has been a top to bottom approach which has had several challenges and created a chaotic and worse off environment for Africa. The ANR Initiative’s strategy would be based on bottom-up approach by the stakeholders for sustainability to create and offer lasting solutions to all the problems that have plagued Africa. The main objective of ANR Initiative is one of redefinition of Africa to address the issues of poverty, conflict, health, education, housing and the environment to achieve sustainable primary socio-economic development through self-help particularly in the rural areas as a measure to complement current African governments’ efforts which are overwhelmed and proven to be visibly inadequate. The ANR would endeavor to partner with all relevant global and international organizations and agencies, NGOs, foreign governments, corporate organizations and individuals to compliment her efforts in each specific area to achieve the laid-out objectives.
Statement from His Royal Highness Oba Dokun Thompson For the past 300 years or more, Africa has been defined by several different perceptions others have and not by those she has of herself. One of the greatest challenges of Africa is how to properly craft out an identity and define herself in the context of the contemporary and modern world we have found ourselves in today. The question now, is how do we then define Africa? Is it based on the context of reality, mythology, fables or folklores that can be described as someone’s wild imagination.
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PILOT PROJECTS IN AFRICA
Pilot projects will be started in 3 locations in Africa namely: • Eti-Oni Smart Town project • Developing Africa Ode Remo • Showcasing Lesotho to the International Market
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SHOWCASING LESOTHO TO THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET The largest digital transformation project in Lesotho designed to onboard as many small to medium businesses in various sectors, showcasing their products and services as well as preparing them to take online payments. The aim is to drive commerce directly into Lesotho by showcasing Lesotho products and services to the international market with the aim of creating trade, employment and business services in Lesotho. The project would list all the raw materials that Lesotho has and discover demands for those supplies, it would list all the tourism location sites in Lesotho and enable to start tasking bookings from international clients enabling direct investment into rural communities in Lesotho.
Ben Omoakin Oguntala African in Chief, African Tourism Market E-mail: omoakin@africasecretariat.com Phone: +44 7812 039 867 @afrosecretariat 12
Some of the key outcomes include: - Digital listing of all Lesotho raw materials - Digital listing of all Lesotho tourism locations - Enabling Lesotho businesses to take online orders and payments - Generate direct investment into rural Lesotho - Generate employment opportunities - Generate training opportunities - Generate raw materials development projects for Lesotho to create and products in Africa
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TYPES OF AFRICAN AMERICAN COMMUNITIES WE WANT TO IMPACT
Lanett Alabama, average income $25,703 Dropout rate 34%
Selma Alabama, average income $24,331, Dropout rate 29% 14
TYPES OF AFRICAN COMMUNITIES WE WANT TO IMPACT
Eti Oni, Osun State Nigeria
Ode Remo, Ogun state, Nigeria 15
ABOUT BEN OMOAKIN OGUNTALA Ben Omoakin Oguntala is a Pan Africanist Briton, passionate about the unification of Africans all over the world as our only chance of collective development. He believes Africa’s development need to be started by Africans because empirical evidence suggests that when non-Africans start African development it invariably ends up detrimental to Africa. Oguntala considers himself an unrepentant capitalist and the solutions to the challenges in Africa and amongst Africans worldwide is a wholly capitalist issue. Any development to do with Africa and Africans must, within the very same sentence include a path to generating trade within the business community as well as employment for the locals. His definition of Pan Africa expands far beyond the geographical confines of Africa and includes Africans wherever they reside. The project is aimed at using capitalism approach to convert the issues and challenges Africans face into commercial solution. Oguntala firmly believes that Africans should be beneficiaries of African raw materials in such a manner that the evidence should speak for itself and the evidence should manifest themselves in trade and employment on both sides of the Atlantic. Bringing African American communities and African communities together, under the auspices of the African Natural Rulers creates a new era in the development of Africans globally, this new redefinition will empower every African boy or girl without any violence and will reward us with economic freedom that we forgot to consider when we were fighting for our political freedoms. When you ask many Africans to point to one reason or another they are proud to be African, their answers will often be, based on emotive ideologies they have developed to make themselves proud of Africa. We believe it is time for Africa to be able to identify at least one community in America, that has been run down and via the raw materials development programme, is revived and spirits lifted to bring out reasons why ordinary people would point to claim why they are proud to be Africans.
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BEN OMOAKIN OGUNTALA’S PUBLICATIONS
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http://guardian.ng/business-services/raw-materials-in-rural-areas-can-address-unemployment-deficit-says-oguntala/ http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/nigeria-stolen-funds-repatriated-uk-embezzled-again-vicious-circle-not-broken-yet-1514865 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22270164 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/12/inside-the-global-hunt-for-nigerias-missing-oil-billions/ http://thenewsnigeria.com.ng/2016/05/diezanis-man-aluko-under-uk-national-crime-agency-probe/ http://dailypost.ng/2015/03/02/uk-claims-divulging-information-about-chibok-girls-will-damage-tieswith-nigeria/
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2017