Ms Gertrude Mongella briefs journalists about the Africa Donors Network annual general meeting held in Arusha yesterday.
PHOTO | PETER SARAMBA
What you need to know:
The renowned politician was addressing the African Grant-makers Network in Arusha; however, she allayed members’ fears saying that Tanzanians were only good at talking
Arusha. Tanzania’s democracy is on test, Ms Getrude Mongela, the first president of the Pan-African Parliament told hundreds of philanthropists gathered here from across the continent yesterday.
Apparently referring to 42 plus presidential hopefuls seeking nomination on the CCM ticket, Ms Mongela allayed fears expressed by members of the African Grant-makers Network (AGN) that the country was falling apart.
“Everybody is talking about being a president, a member of parliament, and representing this or that. We normally talk so much in Tanzania and you think we’ll all be dead after the elections,” quipped the former cabinet minister and Ukerewe MP, adding: “But that’s our style; don’t worry when you read the papers. It’s our style to talk and talk, and talk; finally we get only one president.”
Influential thinkers, actors, and motivators of philanthropy in Africa have since Monday converged here for the 3rd AGN assembly which was initially scheduled to be held in Accra, Ghana, but owing to the outbreak of the Ebola disease in the country as well as in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea last year, it was postponed and moved to Arusha this year.
The AGN was launched in Ghana in July 2009 to, among other things, facilitate African philanthropic institutions to network and learn from each other.
Yvonne Chakachaka, the South African songbird, said Tanzania’s Father of the Nation Julius Nyerere, was actually also the father of philanthropy on the continent as he sacrificed his own and his country’s resources to ensure others were liberated from the colonial shackles.
Grace Machel, Nelson Mandela’s widow, who is due to arrive here today, is among influential personalities expected to address the assembly today. The Tanzania Civil Societies Foundation (CSF) is hosting the meeting in collaboration with the AGN secretariat. “Our values are informed by African philosophies of the interdependence, empathy, care, and support, including mutual respect, inclusiveness, non-discrinmination, accountability, transparency, integrity and innovation,” Ms Theo Sowa, the AGN chairperson, said.
Ms Mongela said consensus was not a new democratic concept imported to Africa and so was philanthropy, which, she said, did not focus on giving out surplus as was the case elsewhere, but rather on safeguarding the dignity of the giver and recipient. “You give out what you really need in case your neighbour needs it the most, yet the receiver’s dignity is enhanced,” she said.
Giving out was not a new concept for Africans to adopt, as the practice was enshrined in culture and traditions of the continent, albeit not well organised.
“I wish you had a glimpse of Maasai democracy, they sit under a tree for days until they come to a consensus,” said Ms Mongela, explaining that Africans were used to giving at every moment of their lives.
“We give at birth, no wonder we have many children to receive as many gifts as possible,” quipped the seasoned politician cum diplomat who was at the helm of the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing China between 1993 and 1995. Ms Mongela went on citing African wedding, funeral, ritual ceremonies, saying they belonged to communities whose members contributed to them whatever they had.
She said generosity towards friends, neighbours and foreigners was a mother concept of African philanthropy. “We’re so generous that we gave away our land to foreigners, and we invited other people to manage our affairs,” she said.
She attributed the African philanthropy to the philosophy of Ubuntu -- giving and sharing, urging actors in the area to consider borrowing its guidelines in a bid to rid the continent of dependency on governments and development partners.
