‘The Africa Factbook’ is here

04 Mar, 2018 - 00:03 0 Views
‘The Africa Factbook’ is here

The Sunday Mail

WESTERN perceptions of Africa as a conflict-ridden, and disease and poverty-stricken continent are a media construct.

It is for this reason that someone has decided to publish a book that sets the record straight.

The brainchild of the creators of “The Book of African Records”, “The Africa Factbook” will serve as a resource for facts about Africa and its people.

Tomorrow, the Book of African Records, in collaboration with the African Union Council and the Research Council of Zimbabwe, will host the Africa Factbook International Stakeholders and Fundraising Conference to lay the groundwork for the massive undertaking.

Stakeholders include, but are not limited to, official representatives of governments, businesses, philanthropists, potential funders, academics and researchers, African regional economic communities, publishers, statisticians, inter-governmental agencies and NGOs.

The conference will be opened by a top Government official and will be graced by the leadership of the AUC. Local celebs like Benjani Mwaruwaru and Jah Prayzah will be in attendance, with their memorabilia set to be auctioned on the day.

The Book of African Records founder, Ambassador Kwame Tapiwa Muzawazi, said the project would go a long way in development of the African continent, which still lacks authentic, comprehensive home-grown sources of information.

“For Africa to develop, its governments, researchers, thinkers, academics, business and populace in general need true, scientific and comprehensive information about the countries’ economies, geography, politics and social aspects, among other areas of development,” said Muzawazi.

“This information can be used for development planning, policy formulation or monitoring and evaluation of the African development agenda. In order to address this information gap, the African Union Commission signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Book of African Records in December 2016, which mandated the latter to publish the Africa Factbook.”

He went on: “The conference of these actors is not just to pool expertise and resources but also to consult and get various views, expectations and needs in order to meet the overall objective of publishing the Africa Factbook.

“In addition the conference shall serve as a marketing platform for the project and its products which will ensure that in the end, the Factbook will be widely used. Through the process, we seek to identify possible collaborations throughout the Factbook compilation process from research, verification, editing, publishing, printing to marketing and distribution.”

Organisers hope to raise US$12 million at the conference.

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