Minutes of Closing Session of the Inaugural BOARD OF DIRECTORS Meeting of the TransAfrica Forum BERTRAM M. LEE Scholars Advisory Council CHAIRMAN

ARTHUR ASHE DR. LOCKSLEY ED MONDSON I Ad Hoc Working Group Reports DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER DR . SY LVI A HILL A. RECOMMEND A TIONS OF AD HOC WORKING GROUP ON - EDWARD LEWIS SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES HARRIET MICHEL DR. JAMES TURNER The Working Group on Substantive Issues recommended several major areas RANDALL ROBINSON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR of study, research, and policy analysis. These were derived based on suggestions advanced by the members of the larger body and further discussion by this group.

1. Culture, Agency and the Reconceptualization of African/Global African Development

Of particular interest is the advancement of conceptual analysis as a framework for human-social agency and resulting policy implications. This may include an understanding of Africa/Global Africa as subjects of their history; political-cultural agency; visions of the future, institution building, etc.

2. Reconceptualization and Restructuring of Economic Development Assistance, and Multilateralism

The policy focus is on the formulation of U.S. aid and trade policy as well as other multilateral organizations including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations. What are the implications of past, present, and future policy decisions for the survival and development of African/Global African people and countries? Some of the specific issues to be addressed are the conditionalities and problematics of trade, foreign aid, "the debt trap", aid and development, multilateralism, U.N. restructuring and development assistance implications.

3. Gender Analysis/Role and Status of Women

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l 4. Natural and Human Resource Management, and Quality of Life

· The policies of governmental and nongovernmental agencies and institutions have many implications for the life chances and the social and physical conditions of African and Caribbean peoples and their communities. These range from the sustainability of their social and physical environment, to penetrating survivability problems and ongoing crises related to AIDS; the health, development, and welfare of children, and food security. Included among the issues to be addressed by this committee are agricultural development and food security, the welfare of both children and families, health and environmental conditions, and science and technology policy.

S. Human-Social Displacement: Refugees, Exiles, and Displaced Persons

The social displacement of individuals and groups in Africa/Global Africa has created an extraordinarily large number of refugees, exiles, and asylum­ seekers throughout Africa and the world. Natural forces such as droughts and hurricanes, and socially constructed forces including famines, economic underdevelopment and marginality, wars, political conflicts, racial and ethnic inequality, results in significant numbers of men, women, and children seeking refuge across cultural, political, and national boundaries. This quest for individual and collective freedom, economic independence, and socio­ cultural and political liberation as well as identity require thoughtful, fair and equitable policies related to immigration and refuge. Most important are the resulting legal, social, and economic ramifications for the range of actors and publics involved. Some of the specific issues to be addressed are the political, demographic, and social impact of U.S. immigration policy; legal aspects of refugee and immigration policy; and race and immigration policy.

6. Political Process and the Relationship Between State and Civil Society

Considerable scholarly and public interest are focussed on "democratization" processes currently in progress on the African continent. State restructuring and the mobilization of various groups throughout civil society (e .g. labor unions, women, students, professionals, commercial entrepreneurs ... ) create a dynamic and conflictual process of social change. Important issues related to these processes of change are the role and effectiveness of an independent judiciary, enfranchisement and denationalization, individual and human rights, minority rights and protection; role of the state and economic restructuring, etc.

7. Security Issues and Norms of Intervention

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~ rn woo~ 8. Understanding U.S. Policy Formulation Toward Africa/Global Africa BOARD OF DIRECTORS as a Process

BERTRAM M . LEE There is a need to take a broad view of the range of structures and processes CHAIRMAN which result in specific policy outcomes vis a vis U.S. policy toward ARTHUR ASHE Africa/Global Africa. What is the scope and range of governmental DR . LOCKSLEY EDMONDSON DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME departments and agencies involved? What is the input and involvement of THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER African-Americans in this process? DR. SY LVIA HI LL EDWARD LEWI S HARRIET MICHE L DR . JAMES TURNER SOCIAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL SCOPE OF TRANSAFRICA FORUM SCHOLARS ADVISORY COUNCIL: RANDALL ROBINSON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR --Africa (general) --Country and Regional Crises in Africa --Caribbean --Global Diaspora Communities --Central and South America, especially Brazil --Other regions of the world

RECURRING/SIGNATURE THEMES IN COUNCIL'S WORKS:

--Social Inequality: Race, Class, and Gender

--Political-Culture Agency

--Institution Building

--Policy Implications

All or some combination of these cross-cutting themes should permeate the scholarly productions of the Scholars Advisory Council.

B. RECOMMENDATIONS OF AD HOC WORKING GROUP ON PROCESS, STRUCTURE AND ORGANIZATION

I. Leadership and Organizational Identity

A. Special Recommendation: Ruth Hamilton and Charles Ogletree, Acting Co-Chairs, should be made Permanent Co-Chairs.

A Research and Educational Affiliate of TransAfrica 545 Eighth Street, S.E. • Suite 200 • Washington, D.C. 20003-2883 • (202) 54 7-2550 • Fa x (202) 547-768 7 • B. Name Change: TransAfrica Forum Scholars Advisory Council 1. Scholars Council will be changed to Scholars Advisory Council. This will avoid problems with the TransAfrica Forum Board and avert the possibility of confusion with the now defunct African­ American Scholars Council.

II. TransAfrica Forum is launching a foreign policy think tank, and it is this new programmatic activity that the Scholars Advisory Council is being set up to advise.

A. Recommended Staffing Pattern 1. A staff person to service the Scholars Advisory Council

2. 4 Fellows: 2 Resident (an Africanist and a Caribbean specialist), and 2 Visiting Fellows

a. The Visiting Fellowships would be selected by a competition and would carry one year appointments

b. One African Fellow and one Caribbean Fellow

c. [Pearl Robinson: "This wasn't discussed, but perhaps one of the Visiting Fellows might focus on any region of the African Diaspora. This could be a way of beginning to focus on Brazil, for example.]

3. The goal is to develop an in-house staff capacity to produce the basic policy documents issued by TransAfrica Forum.

a. The Scholars Advisory Council is an advisory group.

b. It cannot and should not be expected to produce the basic foreign policy documents for TransAfrica Forum.

c. At this juncture, the Forum staff should produce a list of TransAfrica's legislative priorities and identify the substantive things on which it wants some kind of product from the Scholars Advisory Council. B. International linkages should be structured into the think tank's operations from the beginning. BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BERTRAM M. LEE 1. These networks could help TransAfrica to develop its policy CHAIRMAN agenda ARTHUR ASHE DR. LOCKSLEY EDMONDSON DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME 2. International networks may also have a beneficial impact on THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER some of the burgeoning research institutes in the Black World DR. SYLVIA HILL EDWARD LEWIS HARRIET MICHEL II. Purposes of the Scholars Advisory Council DR. JAMES TURNER RANDALL ROBINSON A. Advise TransAfrica Forum on its program and policy research agenda EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

B. Liaison function in TransAfrica's contacts with research and policy groups in the Black World

C. Serve as advisors for the TransAfrica Forum journal and sit on the referee board

D. Make recommendations on TransAfrica's legislative agenda

E. Products: 1. Policy statement for release in May 2. Refereed journal 3. Policy papers 4. Op-ed pieces 5. Short, pithy issue briefs

III. Meetings Schedule A. The Scholars Advisory Council should meet twice a year on a schedule that will enable it to make timely inputs into the congressional legislative and budget processes 1. November and June 2. Each meeting should be 1 1/2 full days of work

B. Standing committees, task forces, policy dialogues and other working groups would be expected to establish their own working calendars.

A Research and Educational Affiliate of TransAfrica 545 Eighth Street. S.E. • Suite 200 • Washington. D.C. 20003-2883 • (202) 547-2550 • Fax (202) 547-7687 ,,. IV. Production of a Foreign Policy Document for the African World Together Weekend

A. Production of this document is one of a range of tasks to be undertaken by the Scholars Advisory Council

B. We should set up a Subcommittee and a Drafting Group to: 1. Help define the issue 2. Write some of the sections 3. Coordinate the process of putting the document together

C. Since this group is an advisory council, the final document must go through some kind of approval process

V. Interface with the Staff

A. If this operation is to work effectively, it is imperative that TransAfrica Forum hire a full-time staff person to coordinate the activities of the Scholars Advisory Council

1. Criteria for the Coordinator's Position:

a. An academic background with at least an M.A. in some aspect of International Affairs

b. Experience working in a university or a publications setting

c. Knowledge of the legislative process

d. Ability to draft policy papers, op-eds, etc.

2. This person would work for the Forum

B. Job Responsibilities:

1. Be a staff person for the Scholars Advisory Council

2. Coordinate the activities of the standing committees, task forces , and policy dialogues

3. Oversee and implement the development of TransAfrica Forum's policy research agenda

I I VI. Structure BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BERTRAM M. LEE A. There should be Standing Committees corresponding to the CHAIRM AN Substantive Policy Areas identified by our colleagues ARTHUR ASHE DR . LOCKSLE Y EDMONDSON 1. These committees can establish task forces to work on specific DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER short-term or longer-term activities DR. SYLVIA HILL EDWARD LEWIS HARRIET MICHEL B. The Lawyers DR . JAMES TURNER

RANDALL ROBINSON 1. Lawyers should be involved in the various committees and task EXEC UTIVE DIRECTOR forces that deal with substantive policy areas

2. Lawyers-on-Call

a. Some kind of arrangement should be worked out so that TransAfrica can call upon individual lawyers to deal with legal issues that might arise

b. We suggest that the lawyers decide how they want to structure this relationship

VIL Membership on the Scholars Advisory Council

A. There should be a process for bringing in people who are not yet members of the group.

1. We suggest that the standing committees should have responsibility for identifying the individuals and the particular expertise that they will need to carry out their respective assignments

2. These committees would communicate their recommendations to the Executive Director via the Scholars Advisory Council's staff person

3. It seems advisable to establish a maximum size for the Scholars Advisory Council--perhaps 35-40 members

B. Service on the Scholars Advisory Council should be for a 3 year, renewable term

A Research and Educational Affiliate of TransAfrica 545 Eighth Street. S.E . • Suite 200 • Washington. D.C. 20003-2883 • (202) 547-2550 • Fax (202) 547-7687 .., C. We recommend that the TransAfrica Forum Board be expanded to include representation from the Scholars Advisory Council-­ specifically,

1. The two Co-Chairs 2. The Editor of the journal

Vill. TransAfrica Forum Journal: A. We recommend that TransAfrica Forum be turned into a refereed journal, and that Professor Edmond Keller, Director of'the African Studies Center at UCLA, be named its first editor. Discussions will take place to determine feasability.

1. Mr. Keller should have overall editorial responsibility for the content of the journal.

2. Mr. Keller should be authorized to put together an editorial board of 6 to 8 people.

B. Mr. Keller is to assume this responsibility and has made the following proposals:

1. With funds available through UCLA, he will hire an associate editor to help deal with the correspondence

2. The editorial process will be located at UCLA

3. Production and production costs should be handled by TransAfrica Forum and its staff

4. Working with Randall Robinson and his staff, he would like to develop a prototype and an announcement that the journal is under new editorship

a. The journal will publish a combination of scholarly articles, policy pieces, speeches, and some of the documents produced by the Scholars Advisory Council

b. The journal will be interdisciplinary and will carry pieces from lawyers, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, development specialists, etc. c. It is important to realize that if TransAfrica Forum is going to be a refereed, the rejection rate will be high BOARD OF DIRECTORS

BERTRAM M. LEE 5. Although the goal is to publish 4 issues a year, Keller is only CHAIRMAN willing to commit to 2 issues during his first transition year

ARTHUR ASHE DR. LOCKSLEY EDMONDSON a. The goal is to establish a journal of the highest quality DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER DR. SYLVIA HILL IX. Linkage Relationships - EDWARD LEWIS HARRIET MICHEL A. TransAfrica' s Board of Directors has already voted to pcursue linkage DR. JAMES TURNER relationships with research and policy institutions in Africa RANDALL ROBINSON 1. We recommend that this mandate be broadened to stipulate the EXECUTIVE DIRECTO R Black World, thereby including diaspora communities

2. As a first step, we recommend focusing on Africa and the Caribbean

B. We propose structuring the linkage relationship through a project of Policy Dialogues, for which TransAfrica Forum should seek funding

1. On the African side, we should begin with 3 groups

a. The African Academy of Sciences b. The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) c. The African Leadership Forum

2. On the Caribbean side, we should put together an umbrella group for the purpose of panicipating in these dialogues

a. Dr. Dorith Grant-Wisdom has volunteered to do the stan-up work on this process

b. She will repon back to Pearl Robinson on the results of her initial investigations

3. We should aim for 2 Policy Dialogues per year

a. One meeting in the U.S. b. One meeting in Africa or the Caribbean

A Research and Educational Affiliate of TransAfrica 545 Eighth Street, S.E. • Suite 200 • Washington, D.C. 20003-2883 • (202) 547-2550 • Fax (202) 547-7687 /1./ C. Proposals from the Plenary Discussion:

1. These dialogues should be conducted with nongovernmental bodies in Africa and the Caribbean

2. We need to develop a screening mechanism for determining who would be invited to participate in the dialogues

X. Message Coordination

A. The TransAfrica staff is in the process of writing a major policy paper that will be published in the edition of TransAfrica Forum scheduled to coincide with the African World Together Weekend. Inasmuch as the Scholars Advisory Council has also been asked to work on a policy document, it is imperative that the messages of these two documents coincide. The members of the Scholars Advisory Council should therefore be informed about the content of the in-house paper, and vice versa.

C. RECOMMENDATIONS OF AD HOC WORKING GROUP ON SHORT-TERM GOALS

I. Immediate Issues to be addressed:

General Goals Foreign Aid: Substantially increasing and enhancing the effectiveness of U.S. aid to Africa and the Caribbean. The Scholars Advisory Council should be involved in the reform of the Agency for International Development.

Debt Relief: Africa and the Caribbean are threatened by their immense debt and plans must be formulated to relieve the burden.

Reform of NAFTA: NAFTA presents a threat to the Caribbean and efforts must be made to deal with its repercussions. BOARD OF DIRECTORS South Africa BERTRAM M. LEE Goal: Real democratization and the economic empowerment of the Black CHAIRMAN majority. Marshal public opinion in the United States to increase pressure ARTHUR ASHE on the South African government for the enactment of a new constitution DR . LOCKSLEY EDMONDSON DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME that enables the aforementioned to occur. Prepare the ground for immediate THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER action by the US following elections. DR. SYLVIA HILL EDWARD LEWIS HARRIET MICHEL Strategy: Use media (op-ed articles, interviews, etc.,) to inform and educate DR . JAMES TURNER the American public on these complex issues. Encourage De Klerk. Develop RANDALL ROBINSON plans in conjunction with the ANC for intelligent reinvestment in South EXEC UTIVE DIRE CTOR Africa that benefits the disenfranchised Black majority. Advocate the SADCC approach to regional development (i.e. development integration). Argue for short-term public and private management training.

Zaire Goal: The removal of support for Mobutu.

Strategy: Write op-ed pieces, and Meet with high-level Clinton Administration officials such as Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Deputy Secretary of State Clifton Wharton.

Angola Goal: The recognition of Angola and the demise of Jonas Savimbi.

Strategy: Write op-ed pieces calling for the recognition of Angola, Conduct demonstrations, and Get Congressional Black Caucus to write a letter with TransAfrica.

Liberia Goal: An aggressive US and UN response to the crisis there.

Strategy: Use the media to keep the issue before the American public, and encourage support for regional organizations such as ECOWAS.

Somalia Goal: An orderly transmon of US authority to the UN, and the establishment of a popularly supported Somali government.

Strategy: Work with the media and articulate plans through working papers, etc. Develop a discussion group on Somalia.

A Research and Educational Affiliate of Tra nsAfrica 545 Eighth Street, S.E. • Suite 200 • Washington, D.C. 20003-2883 • (202) 547-2550 • Fax (202) 547-7687 ,, Goal: Restoration of democracy in Haiti. Make an effort to appease the army. Reform of US policy on Haitian refugees.

Strategy: Write op-eds signed by Scholars Advisory Council on Haiti. Continue pressure via letters and demonstrations.

II Decisions from Final Plenary Session --Devise a process for recruiting new members into the Council.

--In order to provide each Issues Committee with the appropriate direction vis a vis the legislative/political process, lawyers should be involved in each group.

--By June 3, the Council should be prepared to articulate its aims and positions to the media. There should be "product"/cogent analysis ready to be released to the media so that serious content can be added to all of the glitz of the TransAfricaffransAfrica Forum Weekend. This may be in the form of 3-5 page position papers on issues such as the restructuring of AID, Haiti, African and Caribbean debt, etc.

--Op-ed pieces will be written on the need to recognize Angola, crises in Zaire, South Africa, etc. Mr. Charles Cobb agreed to write the piece on Angola.

--There will be an interim meeting in March to further coordinate activities.

--A group should be created to deal with Institutional Boundaries.

--A short term concept paper on Scholars Advisory Council should be created and the Mission Statement should be revised.

--Ruth Hamilton and Charles Ogletree accepted the nominations of the Council to remain Co-Chairs of the Council for an as yet undetermined period.

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BOARD OF DIRECTORS --While it is acknowledged that the Council should meet twice a year, prior

BERTRAM M. LEE to TransAfrica Forum's annual conference and again in the fall to discuss CHAIRMAN issues pending before Congress, November was considered too late to do ARTHUR ASHE so. Thus there is a need to agree upon a date for the second annual DR. LOCKSLEY EDMONDSON meeting of the Council. DONNA BROWN GUILLAUME THE HONORABLE RICHARD HATCHER DR. SYLVIA HILL --What should be the conditions that disqualify an individual from EDWARD LEWIS HARRIET MICHEL participation in the Council? What are the repercussions of UN status or DR. JAMES TURNER a position in the Administration? RANDALL ROBINSON EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR --What is the relationship of TransAfrica Forum to TransAfrica?

--In order to facilitate African involvement, TransAfrica Forum needs to learn more about African organizations. Guidelines must be established for involving Africans as the perception of the Council as an African­ American organization is important.

It was suggested that perhaps the Council should only work with U.S. non­ governmental organizations and instead those in the U.S. government should form an advisory group to act as consultants.

It was also suggested that 2-3 positions in the Council be set aside for Africans and Caribbean Islanders.

--Perceptions: It was suggested that the Council position itself so that it is accessible to all while at the same time be careful not to be perceived as in the service of any particular interest.

A Research and Educational Affiliate of TransAfrica 545 Eighth Street, S.E. • Suite 200 • Washington, D.C. 20003-2883 • (202) 547-2550 • Fax (202) 547-7687 /)I