Wednesday evening, members of the ISU community will be granted the chance to listen to prominent African leaders speak about cutting-edge issues predominantly found in Africa.

The lecture, which is sponsored by the ISU African Studies Forum, will feature ambassadors and leaders from several countries in Africa. Each leader will be given a chance to focus on an issue relevant to their respective country, such as poverty, food security, HIV/AIDS, nurturing democratic reforms, or information communications technology. They will then address how they are dealing with those specific challenges. Following will be an open floor discussion where the audience is allowed to ask questions.

Francis Owusu, associate professor of community and regional planning and member of the forum, feels this lecture is a turning point for the ISU community to learn more about the issues that face Africa today and possibly want to join in the aid to support the effort. The idea to bring the ambassadors to Iowa State came about when he and other members of the forum visited a forum last year in Des Moines in honor of World Food Prize Day.

Owusu said he believes that hosting events such as these will help to promote education about issues in Africa, which also helps in the overall effort in preventing Africa from becoming a “failed state,” and in turn deterring terrorism. He said he feels China’s continued investment in Africa over the years is slowly pushing the U.S. to the wayside. In essence, the United States is “handing Africa over to China” and losing their foothold as a superpower.

“The link between Africa and Iowans is in agriculture,” Owusu said. “Africa is very important to America, and to Iowa State, especially after 9/11, both on a national level and a regional level.”

Leah Keino, assistant professor of apparel, education studies and hospitality management and forum member, said she would like to show that Iowa State is making many efforts to reach out to Africa. To achieve this, at the end of the lecture there will be a brief highlight of a few research projects being conducted here at Iowa State that are aimed at making life in Africa more economically developed.

“Iowa State and the Ames community are really doing a lot of work, particularly in Africa, and having these people come here will further strengthen those relationships we have,” Keino said.

Daniel Karanja, a senior fellow with the Partnership to Cut Hunger and Poverty in Africa, is facilitating the effort to bring Washington-based African ambassadors and experts from the continent to Iowa State. Stationed in Washington, D.C., the partnership has collaborated for the past four years with the African Ambassadors’ Committee in Agriculture and Rural Development in bringing top officials from Africa to visit agricultural areas and institutions in the U.S.

In the past, these ambassadors have come to Des Moines and participated in the World Food Prize International Symposium and visited farms in the region to learn new technologies and discuss innovative ways that might help end hunger and promote economic development in Africa.

“This is also a chance to honor Dr. Norman Borlaug and his achievements in global agriculture and some of the impacts his work has had in Africa,” Karanja said.

Borlaug is a noted American Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and is known as the father of the Green Revolution.

Karanja hopes as a result of this visit that Iowans will gain “a perspective on new opportunities that are coming up in Africa” and as a result will “build collaborations and relationships” with these ambassadors and their countries in a way that will take advantage of these new opportunities to create long-term positive effects on Africa.

“It is important that they [Iowans] learn how best they can partner with Africa to help reduce hunger and poverty in the continent,” Karanja said.