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Learn more about how alliances such as AfriCom and NATO are militarizing the African continent.
You can register for the webinar here.
U.S. involvement through AfriCom doesn’t begin to address the real issues of Africa! Africa is the continent hit hardest by the climate crisis and is already experiencing severe droughts, desertification, worsening heat and water, and food insecurity. (Is it any surprise that numerous African world leaders recently demanded that Africa be given a permanent seat on the UN Security Council?)
How climate chaos affects and compounds other challenges in Africa sheds light on the interlinkages between the climate crisis, gender, and issues such as conflict, food security, and livelihoods. Additionally, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) recognizes the climate crisis as a feminist issue. (See more information about that below.) It is interconnections like these that WILPF seeks to highlight and analyze.
December 20 AfriCom Webinar Information
Previously, in 2020, WILPF, with Black Alliance for Peace and World Beyond War, co-sponsored an introductory AfriCom webinar. WILPF US and CodePink are sponsoring this followup AfriCom webinar, along with numerous other endorsing organizations:
Tuesday, December 20, 2022
11 am PST / noon MST / 1 pm CST / 2 pm ET
AfriCom Out of Africa
During the webinar we’ll hear from experts on Africa, AfriCom, and the U.S. Command program. Register here for this webinar.
After an exchange of views and insights, discussion will explore what can be done to affect current conditions, increase feminist peacemaking, and support the liberation of peoples on the continent of Africa. The webinar will offer actions to take steps to get the U.S. military out of Africa. (For the speaker details, see below.)
WILPF on Human Rights and Climate Collapse in Africa
The Environmental Working Group of WILPF International has hosted several webinars in 2022. These featured feminist activists and women human rights defenders who share their lived experiences of the effects of the climate crisis, including on the African continent. The first webinar happened on August 30, “A Climate of Insecurity for COP 27 – African Women Raising Their Voices for Feminist Climate Justice”. You may view a recording of that webinar here.
This year, the international community met in climate talks, COP 27, which took place on the African continent. At the same time, droughts, wildfires, flooding, and soaring temperatures are accelerating in African countries. This climate chaos has many political and human rights consequences. In that context, the U.S. military is seeking to expand AfriCom.
Speaker Details
Sylvie Ndongmo is the current WILPF International President and a human rights and peace leader with over 27 years' experience, including ten years within WILPF. Sylvie is the founder of WILPF Cameroon and was its president until 2022. A teacher by profession and an African Union Trainer in peace support operations, Sylvie has extensive experience advocating for the political and social rights of women in Africa and worldwide.
Dr. Gnaka Lagoke is an Assistant Professor of history (world, African, and African-American) and Pan-Africana Studies at Lincoln University (PA). A specialist and political analyst in African and world politics, he is also a founding member of the Convention for Pan-Africanism and Progress (CPP – www.cpp-ubuntu.org,) which promotes a Ubuntu-driven Pan-Africanism. As a political analyst, he has appeared on several international news organizations such as Voice of America, Russia Today, Democracy Now, Aljazeera, CCTV, BBC, and many others.
Brother Imani Umoja, based in Guinea Bissau, serves on the U.S. Out of Africa Network Steering Committee of Black Alliance for Peace and is a Central Committee member of both the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) and the All-African People's Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).
Ann Wright spent thirteen years in the U.S. Army and sixteen additional years in the Army Reserves, retiring as a colonel. In 1987, Col.Wright joined the Foreign Service and served as U.S. Deputy Ambassador in Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan, and Mongolia and in other overseas assignments, including in Somalia,. She received the State Department’s Award for Heroism for her actions during the evacuation of 2,500 people from the civil war in Sierra Leone, at the time the largest evacuation since Saigon. Wright is a WILPF member and one of only three persons who resigned from the U.S. government in opposition to the 2003 Iraq War.
Register here for the Dec. 20, 2022, webinar.
This webinar is an example of the way WILPF seeks to show the connections between important national and global issues — and WILPF takes action! Find out more about WILPF on our homepage, where you can also Join or Renew Membership or Donate.
For more information, contact President@wilpfUS.org .
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