THE FIVE YEAR STRATEGIC PLAN 2010-2014

1 Overall Goal

During the five year planning period 2010-2014, the Africa Forum‘s main goal is to raise peoples’ awareness of the Africa Forum and its programs. Awareness will be generated among Africans in as far as addressing and debating on challenges facing the continent.  Moreover the Forum will seek to converge further, its unique position of access to Africa‘s former leaders, harness this resource and apply it to public engagement on addressing Africa’s challenges.

2 Overall Strategy and Approaches

The overall strategy for action consists of fact-finding missions, providing advisory services and commissioning strategic studies on specific areas or challenges facing Africa. The Forum will therefore provide a platform for dialogue and for the discussion of reports from academics and policy makers. It is expected that the outcomes of the dialogue processes and the reports will contribute to the design of interventions in addressing the identified challenges.
This strategy is also aimed at addressing some kind of emerging intellectual deficit that Africa is experiencing over the last couple of decades. Africa has not only lost its capacity for high level dialogue, Africa is now more an assimilator of ideas from elsewhere. Africa hardly sets any agenda for discussion globally. The strategy of the Forum is to support a process of stimulating debate both at academic and policy levels that will facilitate in forging Africa's common stand on specific global issues. The policy papers and project documents that will emanate from the Forum programs will provide grounds for reflection and engagement, particularly between the former leaders and the youth. The idea is to create a space for greater innovation and creativity of ideas and a growing list of institutions across Africa capable of generating and leading such dialogue.
As part of continuity from the first 5 year strategic plan (2006-2010), the issue of building capacity of governments on issues of development is still paramount. The new strategy however anticipates a change in development paradigm given the new threats that Africa faces due to insecurities around food, water, energy, climate change and unstable financial markets. The Africa Forum therefore has included in its strategy the need to mobilize the continent in redefining its security architecture as well as changes in approaches to foreign assistance.
The Forum continues to rely on authenticity and credibility of its members. These are former leaders who continue to believe in democracy and rule of law not only in their own countries but also regionally and continentally. It is therefore important for the Forum’s strategy to continue promoting the reverence by Africans in their former Heads of State. Since inception of the Forum, these members have continued to demonstrate great commitment and leadership to peace and development and they have done so with limited resources. In the 1st year or 2 of this strategic plan, therefore, the Forum will commission a number of books and/or other publications to include:
• Book on Africa`s Leadership Legacy: Learning from the Past to Build a Better future
•  Food security Audit in Africa: An empirical base for building capacity for food security in Africa
• A Review of Twenty-Years of Multiparty Democracy in Africa
• Identifying and Assisting the Most Marginalized Population in Sub Saharan Africa