CORA Launch Event Series

The Collective for the Renewal of Africa (CORA) hosts conversation series to commemorate its launch

The Collective for the Renewal of Africa (CORA) is a Pan-African intellectual collective of over 100 writers, social scientists, natural scientists historians, medical doctors and artists from across Africa and the diaspora. CORA seeks to promote African knowledge and innovative thinking through the production of quality research, and to influence positive change within African nations and in service of African societies.

CORA seeks to produce knowledge that can help break the cycle of exogenous development models that have perpetuated exploitation and extraction, fostered dependency, generated recurrent crises, impoverished African societies and stifled intellectual, technological and artistic creativity. It is the collective’s firm belief that endogenous knowledge should be at the core of the conception and operation of Africa’s political, social, cultural and economic policies and institutions. Knowledge can develop and contribute powerful and transformative ideas that reframe the terms of Africa’s engagement within the global system.

From 12-17 April 2021, the collective will host a launch series of insightful and stimulating conversations. These conversations are an inter-generational and interdisciplinary dialogue amongst intellectuals and thought leaders including: Senegalese novelist, journalist and screenwriter, Boubacar Boris Diop; Biodiversity scientist and 6th President of Mauritius, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim; Former First Lady of the Malian Republic, historian and writer, Adame Ba Konaré; Kenyan writer and academic, Ngugi Wa Thiong’o; Tanzanian author and academic, Issa Shivji, Professor of political science, Scarlett Cornelissen; President of the Global Institute for Sustainable Prosperity, Fadhel Kaboub; Professor emeritus in the Africana Studies Center Theophile Obenga; Author of the African Pharmacopoeia, Raphael Eklu-Natey; and many others.

Speakers will be taking a deep dive into the role and responsibilities of African intellectuals in the evolution of the continent and the various ways that knowledge resources can be harnessed in a context of global economic and health crisis and beyond. The CORA Launch Series welcomes individuals, communities, civil society organizations, state and policy institutions as well as members of the press.

CORA is pleased to partner with the Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA), the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) the Economic, Social & Cultural Council (of the African Union) (ECOSOCC), and The Rosa Luxemburg Foundation as partner institutions for its launch event series.

Register here